PS 3545 
.E5 P4 
1901 
Copy 1 





Class _?sSar4C 
Book__£^/A4 

()DipghtN"_J36L 

COPyRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



An Age Hence 



AND OTHER POEMS 



BY 



GEORGE THEODORE WELCH, M. D, 



New York. 

PETER ECKLER, PUBLISHER, 

No. 35 Fulton Street. 



1901. 



fHE LIBRARY oT 

0O»*GRESS, 
Two CoeiES Receiveb 

NOV. 2T 1901 

COFVRIOHT ENTRY 

CLASS O-'X^*^ **^ 

COPY a 






COPYRIGHTED, 

I90I, 

GEORGE THEODORE WELCH. 



AN AGE HENCE, 



CONTENTS. 

PAOK 

An Age Hence, 7 

Spring, 8 

Morning, * . . . 9 

The Problem, 10 

Love, . , .11 

Psyche, 13 

Azriel, 14 

When thy Dust turns Flower, 15 

An Epicurean Song, 16 

The Dance of Death, 21 

Story of the Deep, 32 

Mortals and the Immortal, 33 

Evil Genii, 35 

The Sphinx, 37 

Venus de Milo, 38 

The Astronomer, 39 

Sleep and Death, 40 

It is a Bitter Winter's Eve, 41 

The Passing Bell, 42 

Love's Trysting Place, 43 

Longing, 45 

The Dawn within the Dawn, 47 

The Secret, 48 

Opuscules, 50 

Whither, 51 

Spoils of the Ages, 52 

The Brook, 54 

The Humble-Bee and the Rose, 57 

Echo Loquitor, 58 

Deserted, 61 

A Spring Longing, 63 

Fatality, 64 

The Magician, 66 

From the Depths 68 

Denial, ,70 

The Butterfly, 72 

The Moment is on the Wing, . 74 

Elysium, 75 

Rosemary, 76 

Belle Tournure, 77 

(V) 



VI CONTENTS. 

. PAGE 

A Chance Acquaintance, 78 

Twilight, 79 

Enchantment, . . . • 80 

Thou Com'st no More, 81 

Let there be Poison in the Song, 82 

While the Years Go Round and Round, .... 83 

The False One, 85 

The Houri, 86 

The Rose, 87 

The Reapers, 88 

A Lover's Abstraction, 89 

In a World Apart 91 

To Realms Unknown Before, 94 

The Hour of Pan, 96 

The Lord of Life loi 

The Mighty Harmonies, 104 

To-morrow and To-morrow, 106 

Stolen by Mysteries, 107 

Like a Dream, 109 

Nature, no 

An Ancient Portrait, . . . . > . . .111 

The Leman, 113 

The Knight and the Fiend *• 117 

Wasted Hours, .119 

The Sirens, 120 

Moloch, 121 

Lords of Cycles, 123 

The Flight from Actium, 127 

The Vanquished, 140 

Immolation, 141 

On Reading Sully's Henry of Navarre, .... 144 

The Cataract, 145 

Fiends of the Midnight, 149 

The Owl, 155 

A Sussex Idyl, 159 

A Fantasy of the Green Mountains, . . , . 173 

Pleasure 176 

Fate, 177 

An Old Age Full of Honor, 179 

Alfred Antoine Furman, 181 

Farewell. 182 



AN AGE HENCE. 

WHO has not felt in his soul the wrong 
Death does to his sense of art — 
To the statesman's scheme, the poet's song, 
And the lover's glowing heart. 

Just as the sphinx leans forth to tell 

Her mighty secret to the brave, 
Comes a spectre cold, with shroud and knell, 

And silence of the grave ! 

But marches the world in triumph on, 

To the music of rolling spheres, 
Till the heavens glow white with the blaze of dawn, 

And God in the midst appears. 

May he grant the prayer of souls asleep, 

And wake them one little hour. 
To gaze on the glory of men who reap 

The harvest of his power ! 



(7) 



AN AGE HENCE. 



SPRING. 



BETWEEN the midnight and the mom, 
Thin clouds arose, and faint winds sighing 
About the caverns, heard replying, 
From pines upon the hills forlorn, 
That called unto the gloomy sea : 
And which began uneasily 
To feel the crawl upon its breast 
Of trickling streams — the darkness stirred, 
Like a ghost in drear unrest. 
Seeing far off the morning smile — 
And on all sides strange sounds were heard ; 
And winter, prone upon his face, 
Ivong lying, with his bony beak 
And steely claws the broad zones holding. 
Stung through amazement with disgrace. 
Did feel his cruel grasp unfolding. 

With hollow rage, his wings, meanwhile, 
Bat-like he beat, as he would rise 
Bearing his quarry through low skies. 
To some dim shore forever bleak ! 
But e'en to save himself, too weak, 
The dismal dragon now lay dying : 
Into the air his breath was flying ! 



MORNING. 



MORNING. 

OUT I looked upon the morning — 
Gave my soul the eagle's flight — 
Where the haughty sun in scorning, 
Fused the planets into light. 

Not a star was seen, the glowing 
Depth of space was pure as flame. 

Where late the tides of night were flowing 
Thick with worlds of largest fame. 

Molten all to thinnest ether, 

But the round earth, far withdrawn, 

Shining in the perfect weather, 
A jewel at the throat of dawn ! 



lO AN AGE HENCE. 



THE PROBLEM. 

GIVEN, a bit of crescent shore, 
With dreamy heavens bending low, 
The hours, sweet pilgrims, loth to go, 
The wind like wine, the sea aglow 
And murmurous with the day's delight. 
And bring, from somewhere out of sight, 
Oh, time, the woman I adore ! 
Just as I saw her on that day. 
And heard her speak, and crept more near, 
Soul-charmed, her tender voice to hear, 
I/Ove-charmed to touch her blessed hand, 
And looked the love I could not say, 
But her's was quick to understand ! 



LOVE. II 



LOVE. 

WANTING eyes, true love can feel, 
Every sense is tipped with fire ; 
Out of woe he works his w^eal, 
Such the strength of his desire. 

Cold and grim the convent walls, 
Pallid is the nun who kneels ; 

As sweet music faints and falls, 
lyove into the cloister steals. 

To the maid in guarded tower, 

Slumbering in the cold moonbeams, 

Ivike to Danae's golden shower, 
lyove descends in charmed dreams. 

Bolts and bars have not withstood. 
Nor the might of armed men, 

When he comes in wrathful mood 
To possess his own again. 



12 AN AGE HENCE. 

At his cry, the coward, death. 
Slinks into his cavern dark ; 

Whilst he blows life's tranced breath, 
To a re-illumined spark. 

He unwinds the dragon's coils 
War hath thrown about the earth. 

Winds it in his sweeter toils 
Till the seasons roll in mirth. 

War depopulates a sphere — 
Love can make it live again, 

While the hills and valleys drear 
Blossom into homes of men. 

lyife his mighty empire is. 

Time his servant, day and night 

In delirious dance are his, 
Bosoming his vast delight 



PSYCHEo 13 



PSYCHE. 

HER heart for very gladness, 
On her red lips ripples o'er, 
As the foam of summer seas 
Ivightly breaks on a coral shore. 

Her words are like a flight of birds 

Across a morn of May, 
Which, if they stay their teasing wings, 

Break into roundelay. 

I think of fawns and fairies. 

When her step glides into dance, 

But fancy finds no symbol, 
For the witchery of her glance ! 

One rapid moment into mine 
She darts her soul, and flies ! 

Mocking the secret she has learned. 
In my despairing eyes. 



14 AN AGE HENCE. 



AZRIEL. 

ONE came to her at the dawn, 
Singing sweet a roundelay, 
*' Rise ! '^ he said, " I must be gone ! 
Thou must follow on the way ! " 

** Whither? whither? I am faint- 
Fever- wasted, see me lie ! " 

** Leave thy flesh, thou darling saint ! 

Wings shall bear thee through the sky !*' 

*' But I leave a grief behind — 

My true lover loves me so ! " 
'^ What he loses he shall find— 

Who waits longest still must go ! *' 

"Gentle spirit ! take us both ! " 
Cried the lover on his knee — 
Came the answer, sad and loth, 
*' Never went but one with me ! '' 

Light and song, and ravishment 
Of the morning wide was blown, 

To their wooing forth she went 
A spirit in the great unknown. 



WHEN THY DUST TURNS FLOWER. 15 



WHEN THY DUST TURNS FLOWER. 

TOUCH hands and kiss me with fond lips, 
And spare not love, for an hour draws on 
When death shall hold thee in eclipse, 
And my soul shall find no dawn. 

Live the life and hold me fast. 

Ere, adrift, on a mighty sea, 
I lose all hope, and the bitter blast 

Shall bear me far from thee. 

For who shall tell when thy dust turns flower, 
And I in the wind go driving by. 

If each feel each in that lonely hour. 
Love-drawn in the silence nigh ! 

But we, who have loved so dear, so long, 
I can not believe but fate would call. 

Away in one soul, like a mingled song 

Sung close to heaven, in the lone night-fall. 



l6 AN AGE HKNCE. 



AN EPICUREAN SONG. 

ON some isle green-bowered in the river, 
Let us sit, and weave us a song, 
Forgetting the day and its sorrow ; 

While the current both dark and strong, 
With a noise like the tramp of armies 

Sweeps onward to the sea. 

Whose bitter waves are hungry 

For the wrecks of eternity. 

For when has toil and trouble 

Saved men from the darksome grave ! 
And when could pain and longing, 

Reach hands to the brink and save ! 
Could the dripping sword of the hero 

Keep the fiend of death at bay. 
When gaunt and famine- wasted, 

He would rend the life away ? 



AN EPICUREAN SONG. I7 



Can the cunning charm of his tongue 

The orator avail ? 
Can the Cloister shield the nun 

At her midnight vigils pale? 
Can the fervent glance of beauty? 

Or the poet's laurel crown? 
The wisdom of the sages ? 

Or the glory of renown ? 

These fall and men forget them, 

While another race succeeds ; 
And the treasured lore of ages, 

Is cast in other creeds : 
And only they are happy 

Who strive not with their fate. 
But seize the present moment, 

With all its vast estate. 



l8 AN AGE HENCE. 



For the past is gone forever, 

And the future no man knows ; 
But eternity is fashioned 

Of the day that comes and goes. 
And the draught to day untasted 

Shrinks to the dregs to-morrow,. 
And mirth has flown with yesterday, 

Leaving the dull-eyed sorrow\ 

There is silence behind us ; before us 

The fates are cold and strong ; 
But the present is ours, and its glory, 

Its light, and its warmth, and its song. 
Then love and gather the laurel, 

For the river is cold and deep, 
And if the dead are immortal 

They tell not in their sleep. 



THE DANCE OF DEATH 



THE DANCE OE DEATH. 21 



THE DANCE OF DEATH. 

WITH wild hands clasped above her eyes, 
Toward the setting sun, the night, 
Fled a stricken thing of woe : 
And the witch moon, down the skies 
Turned her awful face in flight 
Into depths no thought may know. 
Like a serpent the wind did shrink 
Down the valley dark and drear. 
And crept in his cavern, upon whose brink 
Echo leaned and could not hear; 
And not a living thing appeared 
In the darkness strange and weird. 
But the bats, on musty wings 
Wheeling drearily to and fro, 
Where the dead men sat upon their graves, 
Speaking unutterable things. 
Each to his neighbor, soft and low, 
Like the murmur of dying waves. 
To see them was a fearful thing ! 
One raised his frightful skeleton hand 
To his fleshless jaw as if he mused ; 
And one extended his bony arm. 
As if in debating, his mind refused 



22 AN AGE HENCE. 

Some logic his neighbor had uttered. 

While leering at both, as he sat alone 

And played with a toad on a mossy stone, 

A fool his gibberish muttered. 

And the ear could hear with chill alarm, 

An idiot clanking his sullen bones 

In a broken vault ; and hollow groans 

From one who was slain in his sleep. 

And there was a widow, as one might guess. 

From her air of incentment, and brave distress. 

Who ogled a bachelor, who gallantly bowed 

In return, o'er the heads of the ghastly crowd, 

While her eyes drew him over to meet her. 

Creaked his knees as he rose, and at every heap, 

Of the sodden earth, his feet were 

Caught in the tangling grass that grew 

In rank luxuriance and wet with dew. 

From the sides of the smothering graves. 

She gave him her hand and a seat by her side ; 

Whispered he low, and low she replied. 

While the ghost of a fan she waves ; 

And her silken weeds about her clung — 

The old enchantment was on her tongue ; 

The nightingale was calling. 

A coquette on a broken stone. 
Sat, like a princess on her throne. 
While skeleton wooers were falling 
About her feet, as at a shrine. 



THE DANCE OF DEATH. 23 

Ah, truly, she, 

Were a grievous sight for a man to see. 

Who living had loved her, and thought her di- 



vine 



An old crone held a child on her knee 

Wasted beyond our God's mercy ! 

Phantom children were gathered round, 

Sitting silent on the ground. 

While the nurse a fairy tale was telling 

Of the Iviving-Land, where men were dwelling. 

About a fiddler — who, on earth, 
A harum-scarum, jolly fellow, 
Could tune long winter nights to mirth, 
When steaming punch had made him mellow, — 
A round of clattering shades were seen 
In true witch-dances on the green. 
While faster his sharp elbow flew, 
And faster reeled the goblin crew. 
Through some the glare of the livid moon 
Shone dismally upon the ground. 
While they flickered like funeral flames to the 

tune. 
In joyless motion, and made no sound. 

One who had died in his country's wars, 
Stifily aloof a sentinel stood ; 
His front was turned to the planet Mars, 
And brave was the foe who dared intrude. 

Up in a tree was a slumbering dove, 
Beneath it were two who had died for love : 



24 AN AGE HENCE. 

And the hot surprise, the rapier keen 

Thrust right and left in fury's hand, 

And the counter stroke with a dagger lean — 

All these were as they had not been ; 

So long forgotten in the land. 

In her lover's grave they buried her deep, 

And locked in each others arms they sleep 

While the ages roll away. 

Alone on a mouldering slab there lay 
A poet, who looked on the misty sea, 
And dreamed a song of eternity. 
The breath of the rose about him was blown, 
And the heaven's starry splendor 
Was mixed with the shadows about his throne, 
To a half-light pure and tender. 
Too young for his fame he had died at morn 
With his songs unsung and his dreams unblown ; 
In the brooding silence he slept forlorn. 
For his heart was dust and his name unknown. 
But his sorrowful face as he lay in his grave 
Had haunted the spirits in heaven, 
And the source of all mystery, back they gave. 
Since men with their doubts had striven. 

For, oh, 'tis a sorrowful sight to see 
The earth as she rolls 'mid her beauteous clouds 
Down the boundless plain of infinity ! 
For the dead men lie in their mouldering shrouds. 
With their meagre faces and hollow eyes 
With a look of reproach, turned up to the skies ! 



THK DANCE OF DKATH. 25 

The brackish water from vaults has dripped 

In the faces of women fair ; 
And from some, like a robe, decay has stripped 

The flesh, and the bones laid bare. 

And some that starved on desert plains, 

Were food for bird and beast. 
And their bones were polished by winds and rains 

Like the ivory of the East. 

And some look up through whelming seas 

From a thousand fathoms deep, 
Where the gnawing fish in the oozy lees 

Of the ocean never sleep. 

And some have died and left no sign 

That mortal eye can trace. 
But have left the mould of the form divine 

Glassed in each silent place. 

For oh, the cruel years have sown 

Men's lives like an ashen snow, 
And the drifting dead on the dead are strown 

Till nations are lost below. 

And all around the globe they lie. 
Where the moon beholds them from on high. 
And the shuddering stars — a dreadful sight 1 
Pallid and wan, the livelong night 



26 AN AGE HENCE. 

They gaze into the sky 

Through their filmy lids, for they cannot sleep, 
And awful thoughts upon them creep, 
Then cold, like a stream flow by. 

They hear the grinding of the spheres 
As the planets roll around, 
And the distant fall of stars 
Creeps through the lucid bars, 
And even the slightest sound 
Of life above the ground. 
Jars on their painful ears. 

Oh, ye, who walk among their mounds 
In the pleasant light of day. 
Sweet be the flowers, and blithe the sounds 
That on the soft winds stray ; 
For ye may not know, how sad below, 
The dead men lie for aye ! 

But the sun, he knows it, and cannot bear 
Always to look on their despair. 
So draws himself to the South away, 
And stands far off in the wintry air. 
And the stars shrink back ; and the earth a- cold, 
And to hide her shame, wraps fold on fold 
Of ermine about her pallid clay. 
Then like a ghost, far ofi", she seems ; 
Or like a spirit seen in dreams ; 
Wrapping her desolate arms around 
The dead in her bosom lying. 
With head bent low, without a sound, 
Through dismal regions flying. 



THE DANCE OF DEATH. 27 

Then the pitying stars stoop down at night, 
And the sun returns at morn, 
And they lure her back from her awful flight 
And soothe her fate forlorn. 
The sun sends down to her barren plains 
The season of mists and mellow rains ; 
And ever between the fitful showers, 
April is sowing the seeds of flowers. 
For the sun a mantle of flowers would spread. 
To hide the sorrowful eyes of the dead. 

But when the days grow sweet and warm. 
And the mocking bird sings in the tallest trees 
lyike a hundred birds, and the lingering breeze 
Like a vagrant strays from farm to farm ; 
When the hyacinth's delicious breath 
About the garden walks is blown, 
And the daffodil yet lingereth 
In the meadow all alone ; 
And the violet in woodside ways, 
And the pink arbutus on the hill, 
And the dandelion is all ablaze ; 
And merrily sounds the clack o' th* mill ; 
When forest leaves are all apout, 
And children in the green lanes shout, 
When cottage windows open stand. 
And the voice of Spring fills all the land, 
The dead men can not lie at ease. 
They hear the deep melodious seas, 



28 AN AGK HENCE. 

The streams that carol as they fall, 
The coo of doves, the lambkin's call, 
The murmurous drone of busy bees. 
The whirr of swallows' wings, and then 
The blessed voice of living men. 

A desperate longing, and desire 
To be once more on earth, like fire 
Burns all their souls to agony. 
They can not stir — they lie supine. 
And see on high, the glad sunshine, 
And the many living forms that be : 
Above, the fairest flowers are blooming, 
Lovers in the twilight walking. 
Arm-embraced and lowly talking. 
Oh, it is horrible to lie 
And count their footfalls passing by, 
Bach one knocking at your tomb, 
As if the fiends that wait on gloom. 
Would tantalize you with your doom ! 

And when at last the voices are still, 
The whip-poor-will calls on the lonely hill, 
And clouds o'er the moon are sailing. 
And the winds to the streams are wailing, 
That answer in monotone : 
'The dead can not sleep as they lie alone, 
But wary and tense, till the earliest mom, 
When far and faintly like a horn 
The cock is crowing from the eaves. 
And the small birds stir 'mid the velvet leaves, 



THE DANCE OF DEATH. 29 

And twitter but half awake, they lie, 

Seeing the flush of the splendid sky, 

And hearing the mole, as he saps and mines 

For the earth worm's brood at the foot of the 

vines. 
And things fast locked from living ear 
Bach one lying alone can hear : 
The grass above him growing lush, 
And the flower roots that grope in the mold, 
And the beating heart of the little brown thrush, 
As he picks his food 'mid the dew drops cold. 

But now ' tis the midmost week of May, 
When the earth goes forth like a blessed bride, 
To meet the sun on his crimson way 
As he comes in his royal pride. 
The smell of the peach and the apple blooms 
Are in her robes, and in her hair 
The orange wreath, and the faint perfumes 
Of the half-blown rose, are everywhere 
About her steps, and her glorious eyes 
With a bashful fear search all the skies, 
Where the joyful birds before her sing. 
And the days, fair daughters of the Spring, 
The magnolia's dripping chalice bring 
Where the night distilled her dewy wine ; 
And lilies gathered in the dark 
Asleep on the lake, and the sweet woodbine — 
But hush ! The voice of the herald lark 



30 



AN AGE HENCE. 

Is heard in the heavens ! He spies afar 
The approach of the god, and the morning star 
Faints suddenly out ; while tremors run 
Sweet through her heart, as she meets the sun. 

One kiss ! and the dead men start in their graves ! 
As when the warm gulf-stream thrills with its waves, 
In the glittering North, the furtherest isles, 
And they break from their slumbers. The glad 

sun smiles, 
But the earth falls aweeping, ' ' What is it, my love?' ' 
'^Ah, dearest, the lost ones that lie in my plains ! 
They tug at my heart, and all my veins 
Shudder with pity ! Oh, hard is the doom 
To lie in obstruction when the world is in bloom ! ' ' 

Then they whisper together ; and he signals the 
moon 
And the oldest stars, for a powerful charm. 
But not till the lovely month of June 
When the days grow long, and the nights are 

warm 
Does the magic work. Then, mysterious signs 
Are seen in the skies, and the stars draw near, 
And a breath of sighing is heard in the pines 
When the winds are still and the heavens clear. 
The halcyon broods on the mellow waves, 
And the smallest flower sheds delight, 
Then all who lie in unquiet graves, 
If they list, come forth in the balmy night. 



THE DANCE OF DEATH. 3I 

Some, to their pleasures, long foregone, 

Yield up themselves a little hour. 
But the wise, into themselves withdrawn, 

Nourish the seeds of strength and power, 
Waiting a mightier dawn. 

Sometimes they look straight onward, 

Silent, beyond the sea, 
Not to the eve, nor dawnward. 

But far in eternity : 

And the crumbling nations fall 

Like mist below their sight. 
And darkness like a pall 

Covers the stars with night. 



32 AN AGE HENCE. 



STORY OF THE DEEP. 

HIGH throned 'mid the lonely stars, the fates, 
Sat and wove in the olden times 
Webs that might snare the brave estates. 

Of the gods, while they sung their solemn rhymes. 

Hither and thither the great gods went, 
Bearing the threads, whose splendid dyes 

Pictured them in, with grave intent. 
While ever the noiseless shuttle flies. 

Till weary grown, and old, at length. 

Half imbecile, they guessed their shame — 

Knew their will was another's strength, 
And died of the very curse of fame. 

Then rose the sisters, weird and strong. 

High over heights, with the web, till they came 

To a strand where the wild stars broke in song — 
Billows of worlds, that rolled in flame. 

Said to one who met them there : 

'* This is the story of the deep — 
Of the under-gods, which forth we bear ! '* 

Then vanished like a dream in sleep. 



MORTALS AND THE IMMORTAl,. 33 



MORTALS AND THE IMMORTAL. 

SCANT are the elements for all their variety. 
The secret, invisible god, over and over, 
Works them, untiring, in manifold forms ; 
Thrones, and deposes, and tires of the beauty 
Ten thousand years could not perfect again ; 
While he blasts in conception his dreams of glory, 
Unsatisfied, longing, and spendthrift of power. 

Insane grew he, surely, alone in immensity 
Plotting and planning, through eternities hoary. 
Had he not from the rock, and the rain, and the flying 
Winds of the hollow heavens, created 
Mortals, whose follies provoke him to laughter 
Which echoes in thunder ! 

Unapproachable glory and majesty, sadden 
The god in his star-woven silence, and gladly 
He feeds the dying flames of the sun 
With broken stars till the midnight blossoms, 
Whilst forth he leans from the blue empyrean, 
Seeing the round earth rolling under, 
A spark shot forth from his forge, all glowing ! 
Swift flash the hemispheres, swiftly they darken, 
With the mad theatre uplifted ever 
To the god scanning, admiring, and laughing. 



34 AN AGE HENCE. 

Forthright they hasten, the mortals, unknowing, 
Seam with the plough, and tumble the forests, 
Skim the wide waters, and delve in the caverns, 
Marry, and bury, and slumber and waken, 
Harry each other with mutual slaughter. 
Wound with a kiss, and with false love, ruin. 
Till aged untimely, sick and forsaken, 
The fire within them sinking and failing, 
To earth they moulder away in sorrow. 

With a touch, the god rekindles their ashes ! 
Anew have they risen, but all is forgotten 
Of the manifold toils and sorrows of living. 
With the courage of demigods, all ways they hasten 
Proud and insolent, cruel, designing. 
Suppliant, kneeling, wailing, and dying ! 
The battle renewing, the tragedy playing, 
To hell down mining, and scaling the heavens ! 
While above them, the god, on his throne of silence, 
What to them is eterne, to him a moment. 
Alone in immensity leans forth admiring, 
Aroused from his ennui and shaken with laughter ! 



EVIL GENII. 35 



EVIL GENII. 

THK long lean devils in the air ! 
Spirits unclean, whom no man sees, 
On the bat's wings, and the red lightning fare 
Through the wind's avenues and the storm's lees. 

Whom they find ripe for wickedness, him 
Enter they into, like bees in their hive, 

Curl round his heart, and make his eyes dim, 
Till he loathes his brethren, and all things alive. 

Thus into Nero the genii throng — 

Riotous devils, and with their black art 

Thrust him to crimes, and hale him along 
To plunge his sword in his mother's heart. 

Through him, they give order, and august Rome 
Is fired with their torches, 'mid shriek and yell, 

Of the flying people, while spire and dome 
Blazes to heaven, like a noon in hell ! 



36 AN AGE HENCE. 

From his palace roof he looks on the sea 

Of rolling flames, while the fiends laugh loud 

Through his lips agast, and one in his glee 

Shouts through him, triumphant, and curses the crowd! 

One twines round his violin strings, and lo ! 

As in at a window, one darts through his eyes. 
Thrills down through his fingers, and seizes the bow, 

To torment his fellow to musical sighs. 

Writhing melodious, sounds the strain 

Like Apollo departing from ruinous Rome ; 

The striken people look up in pain, 
And cursing, lie down in the ashes of home. 



THE SPHINX. 37 



THE SPHINX. 

OH, Sphinx ! how canst thou guard the secret so 
From frantic Life, pale ghost, scarce seen ere gone. 
Who calls upon thee with such piteous woe. 

Ere hang-man death, shall hale her from the dawn ! 

Is it because some god, long since unknown. 

Gibed at thine ear, and whispering nothing, fled 

Down dismal ways, which thou, thought into stone. 
To tease frail mortals ere their hour be sped ? 

Then guard the empty tomb, where no seed lies 1 
'Twere little worth, though germ of all we crave — 

He little heeds what sun shall light the skies 
Who lies forgetting in forgotten grave. 



38 AN AGE HENCE. 



VENUS DE MILO. 

THOU feed' St upon the rapturous profound 
Of harmony, that needs no wings of sound 
To bear it to such perfect soul as thine, 
For in thy form its tendrils lie enwound. 

Does music unto music's self need tongue 
To tell the deeps no mortal bard hath sung? 
Silence does this, and unto silence' lips, 
Thought, like a lichen to a rock is clung. 



THE ASTRONOMER. 39 



THE ASTRONOMER. 

FROM his high tower that dips into the night, 
Plumb down he looks into infinity, 
Piercing the gloom of ancient mystery. 
Unmindful of this watchful eremite. 
The glowing stars yield to his patient sight 
The secret of their high philosophy ! 
The pallid ghosts of planets he doth see 
Mocking the living and their warm delight, 
And dying worlds, and flaming meteors, 
Crying farewells ! or famine ! to the earth, 
That blindly swings about the sun unshriven. 
While destiny pursues. The morning stars 
Leave him overawed and humble, and men*s mirth 
Makes him recoil, as would an oath in heaven ! 



40 AN AGE HENCE. 



SLEEP AND DEATH. 

PALE death, and sleep, are brothers, and so near 
Their kingdoms lie, clouds that arise 
In death's dim land, make sleep's all drear, 
And sadden dreaming eyes. 

But sometimes gentle visions, rare and fine, 

Like winged seed rise in the air, 
Float in death's halls, and make divine 

And silent splendor there. 

Dreams, and forgetfulness, and poppied ease, 

Sleep oCcrs : death, the vast unseen, 
And deep eternal silence : these, 

A vail flows thin between. 



IT IS A BITTER WINTER^S EVE. 41 



IT IS A BITTER WINTER'S EVE. 

GONE are the flowers, the birds are flown, 
It is a bitter winter's eve ; 
I hear the night winds moan and moan, 
Ivike human lips that grieve. 

Dear heart, come to me, ere the night, 
With fancies dark, and poisoning 

Of melancholy seize me, quite 
Beyond the love you bring. 

For I am lonely, and the past. 

Yawns under me, like some old sea, 

Rising without a sound, and vast 
And deep as destiny. 

Ah, dearest, they are false, who say. 
Ghosts only rise in deep midnight ! 

Too hungry for the haunts of day 
They throng the dim twilight. 

And I, a ghost, from out this flesh, 
That is my tomb when thou art far, 

lyong forth to thee, as from yon mesh 
Of clouds, the evening star. 



42 AN AGE HENCE. 



THE PASSING BELL. 

WHEREFORE these tears? Oh, prithee, tell, 
Why the dove moans in the April wood ; 
Or we hear the sound of the passing bell 
When summer's beauty is at its flood ! 

Music can not fill the void 

So full, grief may not creep between 

The viol's strings, by love enjoyed, 
As though two players played unseen. 



love's trysting place. 43 



LOVE'S TRYSTING PLACE. 
I. 

LOVE'S trysting place is aye in ambush set, 
And all about this sweet and holy ground 
Wait silent cares, and griefs fast shut from sound, 
Foreboding ills, the worry and the fret 
Of lonely hours, and sadness of regret. 
Thus is the fatal thread forever wound 
In human destiny, and thus abound 
Where lover's meet, the woes they would forget. 
Oh, I have mused upon the marble face 
Of one late dead, when the long night of pain 
Had flown away, and some diviner grace 
Than that of earth, came brooding like a dove, 
With most serene high peace ; and said to lyove, 
*' Death mocks your sorrows with immortal gain ! ' 



44 AN AGK he:nce. 



IL 

And I have held within my reverent palm, 

The dust of a dead heart, humid and gray. 

That in a vestal's bosom, many a day 

Beat with the solemn cadence of a psalm. 

Love was renounced for heaven's eternal calm. 

With what lost prayers, and vigils, who shall say ? 

I only know her heart's dust silent lay 

Within my hand, while my tears poured like balm, 

On her forgotten memory. Love's kiss 

Her lips knew not, nor child's caress, nor light 

Of home was hers, nor any marriage bliss — 

For all my grief, I could not envy dust 

That had not thrilled at love, ere time could blight, 

Or mildew, blow, upon life's sacred trust 



LONGING. 



45 



LONGING. 

OH, for the eagle's wings ! 
In yon brave high clouds to float, 
And their fine ethereal springs 
To drink down my fiery throat : 
While the great world rolls below 
In the depths of the dread abyss, 
And smiles in her mighty bliss, 
With her bosom all aglow 
To the sun-god's fervent kiss ! 
Below me the gleaming seas 
To the roots of the hills fast bound. 
By the rivers that, round and round 
The zone of the earth are wound, 
And the forests that shadow these ! 

Below me the kingdoms rolled — 
Dim spots on the map of an hour — 
Where the cities' hives swarm forth, 
Stung by the lust of power. 
And the ancient curse of gold. 
While I laugh, like a wind in the North, 
With a sneer as cold as its breath ! 
And my keen eyes mock the death 



46 AN AGE HENCE. 

That leaps like a flame on the hills, 
Torch-lit from some baleful star, 
And bursts in the flame of war. 
While it withers some lonely home 
High-pitched, where the mountain rills 
Laugh white through their beards of foam. 

Whither, oh, whither, to rise 
In the vast and splendid skies. 
From the barren spot below ? 
Where honor is smirched with lies, 
And calumny works its woe 
On the beautiful and wise — 
Alas, that it should be so! 

But fair lies the earth, in the glow 
Of the sun, while the heavens are cold, 
And the firefly swarm of the stars. 
Breathes a mystery as of old. 
That pains and appals the heart ! 
And better seems human woe 
And the hope that survives the wars. 
Than the depths that we cannot know 

Look up and smile on me, love. 
And woo me, sweet, to your breast, 
So I fold up my wings like a dove, 
That drops to its balmy rest ! 



THE DAWN WITHIN THE DAWN. 47 



THE DAWN WITHIN THE DAWN. 

BEHOLD the dawn that burns 
The wasting night away, 
Like a strong flame that yearns 
Out of the heart of day ! 

Back fly the shadowy host 

Of evil genii, 
And the pale moon like a ghost 

Fades from the glowing sky. 

Lo, how earth's lovely star, 
To the beckoning sun rolls on, 

Down the breathless steeps, and far 
To the dawm within the dawn ! 

So you lure my soul away ! 

It follows, a wandering fire, 
Through roseate realms of day 

That throb with my heart's desire ! 



48 AN AGE HENCE. 



THE SECRET. 

WHAT spirit of all the musical throng 
Shall touch my soul till it break in song, 
Like a harp-string stirred by a bard's unrest 
Till it sweeten the fame of a name thrice blest. 

But the bard sang through the instrument, 
And the spirit would thrill me to its intent. 
While my own deep song would remain unsung 
Till it woke an age hence on a happier tongue. 

Moulder my dust and mould it again, 

A hundred times to that fairest of men — 

Were it not that the germ of my secret, dear, 

I have borne through ages that though mightst 

hear. 
For, ever before me. in beauty, the flame 
Of thy presence lured me, till I became 
Through spirals of change, in countless being, 
Man, and thou, woman, — now no more fleeing I 
But turn to me, love me, for time is a spark 
Shines for us but the moment, and all is dark ! 



THE SECRET. 49 

Nor think strange that my secret remains unsung ! 
Long constrained to deep silence, it lies mute on my 

tongue, 
Like music that aches on the lyre, till the strings 
Thy skilled hand touches, and lo ! it hath wings. 

But the gods need not the lure of sound : 

Thought they find in its silence wound ! 

Look in my eyes, speeds my secret to thine : 

Deep into deep : thou knowest the sign ! 

Through the tremor of flesh thou shalt feel it and know — 

Holy it is, and long kept aglow 

Through change, as a torch o'er the heads of a throng, 

To the priestess above it, is handed along. 

Till the fire sacrificial breathes flame, and man's doom 

In the white flower of midday one moment shall bloom. 



50 



AN AGE HENCE. 



OPUSCULES. 

FLESH shrinks from the cold, but turns and blesses 
The fire aglow on the hearth so golden, 
So each on the world his worth impresses, 
And as thou lovest, to thee men are holden. 



Life is a priestess, through midnight bearing 
A perfumed lamp — Oh, I bid thee beware ! 

Lest thou jostle her hand with thy folly or daring, 
And the flame be lost in the chilly air ! 



Bach day is an island aglow in the sea — 

Voyager bound to the farthest deep, 
Make free with its treasure, ere the dim bark, sleep, 

Bear thee away where the shadows be ! 



WHITHER. 



51 



WHITHER. 

EACH spring-time, her secret, nature has striven to 
tell us : 
In streams, and verdure, and flowers, her eloquence 

wakens. 
And the birds on the paths of the winds, her couriers 

hasten. 
And old desires burn fresh from their ashes in men. 
Wide forth we hasten, all glowing, and eagerly question 
From whence we came, and whither the ages are flowing ; 
To what goal, the races immortal, in vigor are tending. 
Earnest as gods, and striving undaunted as heroes. 
Making death a resting, and not an end of endeavor ! 
For out of the ashes the genius glad life awakens, 
Which shakes off" the dust of its sleeping and hastens 

away. 
Impatient of slumber that kept it one hour from glory ! 



52 AN AGE HENCE. 



SPOILS OF THE AGES. 

NOT to my mind came sorrow or despair, 
When all the tumbled hillocks of the dead 
Greeted mine eyes, this wild and windy morning, 
Roared over them the wet and bending trees, 
And the low hung clouds shut out the gleam of heaven. 
The mists in the flowers lay tangled — 
Sullen the waters ran — 
And the still-delaying swallows. 
Were blown, like a forest of leaves, 
Over the meadows, and out to the hungry sea. 

Neither despair, nor sorrow, though hundreds were 
lying. 
Sordid and lonely, each in his narrow cell. 
Deaf to the wrath of the tempest — 
Unheeding the struggles of men. 
But 1 thought how, only the marbles. 
And no great deed, with its tongue of fame. 
Nor golden memory might tell, 
Who lay in this lap of silence. 

When these were living, how many thousands of days 
Lay open the paths of glory ! 
And the soul in its tangle of flesh 
Struggled, and urged in vain. 
But from the earth their venal eyes rose never — 



SPOILS OF THE AGES. 53 

Small ambition saw never the mighty stars, 
Nor valued the day in its passing, 
Though it bore the favor of gods. 
And one with crowns came after. 

But think you no hint came to them 
Of a larger fulfillment of life ? 
Trust me, the humblest feel it, 
And the earnest are armed already. 
But long seems the toil and the fortune of battle unknown, 
And men are lovers of ease. 
So, better the day's dull bounty 
Hoarded in peace, and spent in the leisure of age, 
Or even to creep obscurely. 
And starving from day to day. 
Than to go where the high gods call, 
Up from the valley and over the lofty mountains ! 

But, 'tis easy to look on the fallen — 
Scorn them for folly, and say : 
'* Better to have fought like heroes. 
Though wounded, and bleeding sorely. 
Borne down in the battle, and victory flown to another. 
Than to have lived in ease, since death was the end at 
last!" 

Oh, ye, who are living, look round you ! 
The same paths lie open to glory — 
The spoils of the ages are heaped for the hands of the 
hero ! 



54 AN AGK HENCE. 



THE BROOK. 

LITTIvB brook, why laughest thou, 
Whorled in meadow grasses, 
When the wind blows cold from the mountain's brow 
O'er snow in the mountain passes? 

The rose that kissed thy lip last May, 

Blooms now in Southern bowers, 
And the birds that sang to thy song all day, 

Court her amid the flowers. 

Dark and drear lies the windy mere. 

The sun is pale to sadness. 
Summer is gone with all its cheer, 

How canst though laugh with gladness ? 

** Never winter touches me, 

I stay not to brood or linger. 

Over the pebbles and out to sea 

I speed from his icy finger ! 



THE BROOK. 55 



" A hundred trees swoon down my stream, 
A thousand wild flowers blowing 
Look in my eager eyes the dream, 
That sets my heart a-glowing. 

'* I hold my glass up to the sun, 
And while he looks in smiling 
To see himself made small, I run, 
Laughing, and still beguiling. 

** Then throw it down, for a headlong leap 
Over some rock's vast shoulder, 
Into caverns blind and deep, 

Where the bones of giants moulder. 

*' Thus rush I on ! but dost thou think 
I am lost in the sounding ocean ? 
I rise, a spirit, from the brink — 
The prayer of the sea's devotion ! 



56 AN AG^ HKNCE:. 



** I am the cloud thou saw^st last June, 
In the glorious even, 
Sailing near the full-orbed moon, 
Like a wild swan in the heaven. 

*'It wa^s I that wrought eclipse 
Of the moon, lest she discover 
When thou stooped to kiss the lips 
Of thy earnest lover 

** Now, toward the mighty mother's heart 
My veins run full of gladness. 
And were I man, as man thou art, 
I had no thought for sadness. 

"For what is lost is found again, 
And never ancient story 
But lends its far oflf gleam to men 
Who give the present glory.'' 



THE HUMBI,E-BEE AND THE ROSE. 57 



THE HUMBLE-BEE AND THE ROSE. 

HOW canst thou, burly humble-bee, 
Rifle the rose's heart? 
Are there no common flowers for thee — 
Bold braggart as thou art ! 

The rose is nature's paragon, 

The loveliest of the bower, 
And blooms by brimming Helicon 

Apollo's favorite flower. 

She lights the way the morning flies 

Over the planet's rim. 
And is the torch for lover's eyes 

When twilight lanes are dim. 

I chide no zephyr wandering late 

In sweet delirious bliss, 
Just parted from her at the gate, 

And drunken with a kiss. 

But thou, bold plunderer, avaunt ! 

Go sip the laurel dew 
By some weird witch's caverned haunt — 

The rose is not for you ! 



58 AN AGE HENCE. 



ECHO LOQUITOR. 

WAS that your song made eloquent the wind 
That whispered at mine ear, while slumber wooed, 
And I lay half forgetful, thrown along 
With shadows, on a bank of flowers dim ? 
" Have the gods come back ? '* I said, "Or have I slept, 
And dreamed the dismal est dreams the lost can know 
In the blind pits that swallow them from men ? '* 
For, oh, it seemed a ringing afternoon 
Of the young world, when th' gods, like light came 

down 
Large lustrous youth, to roam this star again, 
And not the hateful times when all are flown 
But I, that once made beautiful this sphere. 

When the old doom of change began to work, 
There were strange signs in heaven, and on earth 
Moanings, and shapes like shadows flying past — 
But I, storm-stayed within the hollow keep 
Of a vast cavern, was by magic slain 
With slumber, till the golden age was flown. 
Beyond the farthest star the gods were gone 
And the bright troops of fauns and naiads, all, 



ECHO LOQUITOR. 59 

And I left lonely in this world of men ! 
Like a great flight of birds about the dawn, 
I saw them melt into the golden sheen 
Of morning, thick against the glimpse I had 
Of the new glories they had entered on. 

Have they not missed me by their marvelous streams? 
Or does new love crowd memory away ? 
Ah, me ! the hours I have lain down alone 
In solitudes, with memory at my knee 
Crooning old tales, till I have wept anew ! 

And flowers wept dew, and birds were hushed from 
song. 
And the stilled rivulet, like a. dying pulse. 
Slid down the grass, and silence crept more near. 

I know not if the gods steal back sometimes. 
Smitten with longing for the olden days — 
But would that I might teach my lore to thee 
And make thee one, or more than mortal man ! 
This way into the woods! The air is balm ; 
The old moon shines above the pool, and here 
A stream from out the cavern trickles down 
And dims the forest leaves with blood. 
There in the cavern lies the wounded night, 
Shot to the death by morn, and all her width 
Of dragon wings lie limp along the floor ! 
That cold wind was her soul that rushes forth ! 
When the sun sinks she will come back again, 
Creep through her wounds, wake life, and fly away ! 



6o AN AGK HENCE. 

Hear how all sounds come amorously to me : 
The cool wave crushed to foam on far-off shores 
Sends a low moan to mind me of the sea ; 
Bells in the air, and voices of the kine, 
Murmur of floods, and slow and sullen sounds 
From villages of men, the panther's cry, 
The riot of the wind among the leaves 
Making a flowing sound, as though there ran 
A river in the air, sweet minstrelsy 
Of birds gone mad to be alive, the joy 
Delicious of the flowers, (thou canst not hear !) 
Tune wistfully about my ears, all hours. 
To steal the burden of my sorrow forth. 
Until I send them back, down rock and thorn, 
To dreamful ease, in valleys far away. 

Scarcely the flowers bend beneath my feet, 
But after thine they rise up wounded sore. 
Bleeding a purple dew — this proves thee man. 
No matter ! there is something in thee, still, 
Not wholly mortal. Follow me — oh, on, and on ! 
Would you had wings ! How slow are mortal feet ! 



DESERTED. 6l 



DESERTED. 

EVEN joyful memories , 

Bring something sad, at twilight's hour, 
Some shadow from the silent seas, 
Some cypress from the bower. 

Oh, friends, I shall not see again. 
My lost youth wanders far away. 

With yours, beyond the haunts of men, 
In some bright yesterday ! 

And calls to me, **Come back, dear friend ! " 
And waves its rosy hands in vain — 

The bitter current will not bend 
Back to the golden bowers again. 



62 AN AGE HENCE. 



High hopes and fames, the genius brings, 

To hribe our manhood, as we fly 
Far from the youth, who laughs and sings, 

Where pleasure stands applauding by. 

But send us now and then, dear youth, 
From out thine islands green and gay, 

Some happy memory, though in truth 
A tender sadness find the way. 

And yet, who knows, but on a day 

When the blue sea mellows round your capes, 
**God den ! '^ we greet you, fresh as May, 
While the old life into the dark escapes ! 



4 

i 



A SPRING I.ONGING. 63 



A SPRING LONGING. 

WHEN the black-bird sings on the withered spray, 
Tossed by the wind on the warm March day, 
Spring o'er the low hills comes this way. 
Every wind blows thick with birds, 
Gambol the lambs, and the lowing herds 
Long for the fields where the vapors rise 
Wind-winged toward the summer through sunny skies. 

I pause by the river, and listen long 
To the joyous rapture of his song : 
The affairs of men unheeded wait — 
I am free an hour from care and fate ! 
I have grown attuned to the voice that swells 
By the roaring sea, and wakes the dells 
With the wild brook's laughter; with the harp of the wind 
Played in the forest, and with all merry kind 
The green earth round, that hold them near 
To the heart of nature, and love her dear. 
I am thrilled with longing ; all sweet desires 
Through my being glide, like golden fires ; 
All I have been, and all I shall be, 
In the past, and the long eternity. 
Waken within me — I climb once more 
Through the olden types, as once before, 
Till I wake in man, and away am gone. 
With mv cecret, through the gates of dawn. 



64 AN AGK HENCE. 



FATALITY. 

AN hour, in a lonely place, 
I sat down face to face 
With the spirit no thought can bind. 
Odorous was the wind, 
Mellow the sound of the sea. 
And the birds sang over me 
In the tall trees, and far 
Shone a single sail, like a star, 
In the blue deep of the main. 
In heaven there was no stain. 
And the flowers sweetened the ground 
With color, like sound 
Of music to blind men's ears. 
My eyes were filled with tears. 
For happiness oppresses 
The heart it too much blesses. 
We are so linked to pain ! 
But my soul was one with the strain 
Of singing birds, and the sea : 
And I thought, on eternity. 
With odor, and color, and sound, 
To drift, were joy profound. 
Though changing many times 
The semblance of life and its rhymes. 



FATALITY. 65 

For 'tis custom that binds us so ; 
And thought that works us woe, 
Ever life's problem turning, 
Pained with immortal yearning 
Over things not understood. 
And the dead, like a Gorgon's brood. 
Will not lie in their graves, but rise, 
Spectral, and cold, and wise. 
To threaten with ancient laws 
Every quick and generous cause, 
Till we yield, and stand aghast. 
At the power of the terrible past 1 



66 AN AGE HENCE. 



THE MAGICIAN. 

I CLOSE my eyes and look within 
Where thought in silence dwells— 
Secretest of hermits, he ! 
He shuns world's folly, and its din. 
Bats pulse, and from the coldest wells 
Drinks and broods eternally. 

Hints of old remembrances, 
lyike flower scents are to him blown ; 
And to-morrow, he hath seen, 
Ringed with mighty destinies. 
Slumbering on his cloudy throne 
Built the dark and dawn between. 

Sometimes through my eyes he looks 
With a steadfast gaze and long, 
While the world in silence waits ! 
For he turns the Sibyl's books, 
Gathers in the seeds of song, 
Or hears the whisperings of fates. 



THE MAGICIAN. 67 

From my slumbers I awoke 
In the deep and lonesome night : 
Thought was at his alchemy — 
Spirits, did his wand invoke 
From the bowers of their delight, 
Where the gods and graces be. 

And the dreams did come and go — 

Fairy magic, mocking time 

With his blind hours sweeping by ! 

But methought impending woe 

Fed upon each perfect rhyme, 

And thought did turn his face and sigh ! 



68 AN AGE HENCE. 



FROM THE DEPTHS. 

WHEN the beauteous maid had found 
Age was stealing unaware, 
Softer than the hush of sound 

Or shadow on the stair — 
lyike a marble statue, long. 

Stood she in a sad surmise. 
If she might the hidden wrong 
Search from out its deep disguise. 

In her mirror leaned and gazed 

As in some unfathomed stream, 
Where the eyes that lovers praised, 

Met her in a serious dream. 
But a weary face and wan, 

'Neath her own she might espy, 
Faintly as a star at dawn 

In an early evening sky. 



FROM THE DEPTHS. 69 

From the starved lips there came 

Ivow whisperings, like the mood 
In which nature hints our shame, 

Voiced in some deep solitude : 
"O'er the beauty nature gave, 

You invoked the tricks of art, 
Till she holds you as her slave 

Even to your secret heart. 

"And wears you with her chains, and brings 

Idle triumphs as the fee, 
To bribe the god within, who sings 

Of a higher destiny. 
When god made me, in that hour 

He gave the flesh you too much prize, 
As the palace of my power, 

Not to hide my miseries. 

"But a prisoner I pine. 

In the dungeon you make fair ; 
Your marvelous beauty is my sign 

And symbol of despair. 
I, the keeper, am locked in, 

I, the genius, am the slave ; 
Small wonder that the hours begin 

To dance upon my grave !'* 



70 



AN AGE HENCE. 



DENIAL. 

DESIRE is, like the breath of flowers, 
Death-sweet, and evanescent, 
And perishes ere happier hours 
Tread lightly on the present. 
IvOve^s longing yields to apathy — 

That mildew of long waiting ! 
And hearts have lost their harmony, 
That heaven meant for mating. 

And vain is immortality 

That haunts the soul in dying. 
With charm of specious flattery, 

From out a heart of lying. 
For who to future times may trust. 

That meets to-day, denial ? 
Can glory *s root strike through the dust, 

To men long dead of trial ? 



DENIAL 

Pray tell me where the rose-bud blooms 

That from some tender bower, 
You pluck with all its vague perfumes? 

And tell me where the flower, 
Full blown, shall into seed mature, 

That on the breast of beauty 
One moment shall your eyes allure, 

Then perish with its duty ? 

And where the promises of life 

Shall grow to grander uses. 
When manhood falters in the strife 

And turns them to abuses ? 
And where long waiting and heart pain 

Shall find reward of pleasure, 
When wrinkled age has proved them vain 

And death lurks in the measure? 

L/ife's sacred flame but holds aloof 

Death's darkness, not its sorrow, 
For the strongest nature is not proof 

Against the unknown to-morrow. 
Too imminent the time, to lose, 

In dalliance, dream, or story. 
But long enough, oh, sovereign Muse, 

For triumph, love, and glory. 



71 



72 AN AGE HENCE. 



THE BUTTERFLY. 

DREARIIvY on the grass I lay, 
The red rose wondering by ! 
Nor thought the gladsome month of May 

Might feel offended at my sigh — 
When lo ! she sent the butterfly, 
To show her sweet disdaining ; 
A dream, a flower, it floated by. 
And mocked my dull complaining. 

**I feed on dainty sweets,*' said he, 

"And all the balmy air 
Brings me the song of bird and bee, 

And not a note of care. 
The world about is very fair, 

I feel the warm sun shining. 
The universal love I share 

That never knows repining. ' ' 



THB BUTTERFI.Y. 



73 



^* Yes, " quoth I, but my finer sense 
Perceives the gloom instead, 
Nor can you keep your gay pretense 
When hovering o'er the dead.'' 
** I only see the flowers," he said, 

''And these breathe not of sorrow, 
While the blue heavens, o'er my head, 
Bespeak a bright to-morrow.'* 

** But even wings of gossamer 

Must fail at last ! " I cried ; 
** Then let me use them now, good sir ! " 

The winged sprite replied : 
*' For life is like the time and tide, 

And beauty has its season, 
Adown the changing stream they glide, 

And wait not for your reason." 



74 AN AGE HENCE. 



THE MOMENT IS ON THE WING. 

INTO the life within the life 
Who sees deepest ? who can tell ? 
For it hides itself in a show of strife, 
And blinds the eyes with beauty's spell. 

Hides in a marvelous tangle of flesh 
That a lover's lips might melt withal, 

But can not draw through the willing mesh 
The mistress it holds in thrall. 

But life has given to each an hour 
Wherein no shadow death may fling, 

And love is its glory, love its flower — 
And the moment is on the wing ! 

It flies, and the fire of longing flies — 

Vain regrets and sorrows stay. 
Youth is cheated and age unwise 

Withers and withers away. 



ELYSIUM. 



75 



ELYSIUM. 

NEVER thought I, in the old days gone, 
Love was a flower of the summer time, 
To flush in June depths, till it be withdrawn 
Like a flame blown out in its festal prime. 

But to me like a purer life it seemed ; 

Two hearts but a mingled soul — maybe 
The end shall bring peace, or I have dreamed 

Raptures no human eye shall see ! 

For I want no heaven love may not bring — 
One touch of his lips is better than all 

The dreams of prophets, of saints that sing. 
Or hero's that feast in Odin's hall. 

Out of the dark we came, who knows 
Into what light we go? this hour. 

We float like motes where the sunlight glows- 
The next, oh Love, is beyond our power ! 



"J^i AN AGK HENCE. 



ROSEMARY. 

HOW can a fond heart love with old desire, 
When seas roll in, and mountains rise between, 
And the long years run desolate, and unseen 
At fancy's root, wastes memory, like the fire 
Of morn's white star, whose waning beams inspire 
The torch of Phoebus? Phoebus dies, I ween, 
Some numbing morn when winter's breath blows keen. 
And the scant beams of Hesperus expire ! 
So lyove, made pensioner of memory. 
From pallor unto pallor fades away 
To a wan soul, that fleets eternally ! 
Have pity, thou, and bid the poor ghost stay ! 
Morn gives her stars ! yield up your eyes to me, 
Your lips, your heart, and make my winter. May ! 



BEI^IvK TOURNURE. 77 



BELLE TOURNURE. 

MY poor heart stammers like my lips 
When I would look on thee, 
And swimming tears bring dim eclipse 
To eyes that fain would see. 

My passion through me winds and yearns, 

Now like a sudden flame, 
Now down my pallid cheeks it burns, 

With shudderings like shame ! 

I am not I, I am become 

I^ove's lute-string jarred to song, 

By touches of some god gone dumb, 
Who looked on thee too long ! 



78 AN AGE HENCE. 



A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE. 

WHAT was there in the fair girl's eye — 
Girl I never saw before, 
That should make my heart tremble and sigh 
For one I shall see no more ! 

Back came my wandering youth, 

Sunny gleams and flowers aglow, 
And the face of one I loved, in truth, 

Long, long ago. 

Sweet and sad are the days long flown, 

Down some sudden vista seen — 
Pure and perfect they lie alone. 

Immortal and serene. 

Who stands midway on the height. 

And looks not back with tears, 
Where the stream, and the rose, and the morn's delight. 

In the valley below him appears? 

That moment the sun shines dim, 

The peaks are cold above ; 
Glory and fame are naught to him 

Bmparadised with love. 



TWILIGHT. 79 



TWILIGHT. 

SOMETHING is lost to the morning-— 
Though the wide world glows, 
Out of dark, like a rose, 
That bursts from the bud into glory ! 

Something is lost — yea is wanting — 

That would make the morn pure, 
And give charm and lure 

That would draw the sweet saints out of heaven J 

I, at the outermost margin 

Of day-dawn, and thou. 

Asleep with the night, now. 
What good genius shall bring us together ! 



8p AN AGE HENCE. 



ENCHANTMENT. 

WHERE you lie dreaming, darling, 
The night is cold and still. 
The wind lies asleep on the hill. 
The moon has gone out of sight, 
And the stars are alone in the night. 

Anon comes a tremulous sound 
Of water plunging and falling — 
An owl in the forest calling — 
The watch dogs, ominous, cry — 
For a shadow comes stealing by. 
And in at your window has gone 
Ivike the first faint rose of dawn. 

'Tis the genius of sleep, my darling, 

He hath borne by forest and stream 

My soul away, like a dream ! 

For the strength of my longing grew 

Like the pain of death, and I knew 

No golden joy for the lover 

Your true arms might not cover I 



THOU com' ST NO MORE. 8 1 



THOU COM'ST NO MORE. 

ONK quiet afternoon in June 
Beside this winding water's way, 
We heard aloft the merry tune 

Of birds among the leaves at play. 
Knee-deep the dappled cattle stood 

In shallow runlets cool with shade, 
And wanton zephyrs kissed and wooed 
The flowers all down the lonely glade. 
So kissed I thee, oh, lovely maid ! 

Returns the season to the dale. 

And flowers crowd gaily to the stream, 
The black-bird, sweetens all the gale. 

But thou com' St only in my dream. 
A shadow lies upon the hill. 

The rose is not so sweet 's of yore. 
The shallow stream limps weak and chill 

From stone to stone — the clouds bend o'er— 
Soul of my soul, thou com'st no more ! 



82 AN AGE HENCE. 



LET THERE BE POISON IN THE SONG. 

READ me some sad, melodious verse, thought-low, 
In the dim silence murmuring like a stream 
That drowses in its channel, to and fro. 

Among the flowers that yearn into its dream. 
Let there be poison in the song, distilled 

From weary woe, or love long passioning. 
With power to numb the soul it first hath thrilled, 

Till sense on heart, warm folded under wing, 
A slumberous swan I float upon the rime 
Far from the day and lost to envious time. 

For I am weary, ere the noon of day, 

And my lorn thought, from the long journey's end 
Where I had sent it to explore the way. 

Comes back like sorrow to its stricken friend, 
With whisperings of the mad world's mystery, 

And vain pursuits that in a beaten round 
End like the symbols of eternity. 

And still delude, and cheat with airy sound 
Youth and old age, with promise high and brave, 
Till one by one they totter to the grave. 



1 



WHII.E THE YEARS GO ROUND AND ROUND. 83 



WHILE THE YEARS GO ROUND AND ROUND. 

OH, to lie down below 
In a long silence, sad and deep, 
Where winds forget to blow. 

And clouds to weep. 
To hear no more the lapse of running streams 

On summer days, or carol of wild birds — 
To sleep too sound for thought or dreams, 

Or aught the mind can tell in words — 
While the years go round and round, 

Till naught remains of me 
That is not like the ground 

Whereon you see 
The red rose spring. 

And the thistle drop its seed. 
Time's fullness then may bring 

The peace I so much need. 

It can not be the passion and the gloom 

Of a lost life, can then remain. 
To brood and nurse pale fires within the tomb 

To burst into the world again. 



84 AN AGK HENCE. 

For all strange roots shall pierce my mold, 
And passions shall arise in these, 
To waste themselves on many a breeze, 

While I lie here so wan and cold. 

Heart's love into the rose shall bloom 
On some delightful summer day, 
And breath by breath shall die away 

Bnamored of its own perfume. 

And in the gloomy pine shall rise. 
Sailing low, my melancholy : 
And my folly 

In some flower with winged seed. 

Which light winds about the skies 

Shall scatter with its losel breed. 



THE FALSE ONE. 85 



THE FALSE ONE. 

WHEN at last the false one dies, 
Out of memory, and her eyes, 
Haunt no longer, and her face, 
Vanishes with all its grace : 
When the subtleties she wrought, 
Come no more into the thought, 
And thou look'st on her unmoved, 
As though thou hadst never loved — 
Thou hast conquered — live once more. 
Shipwrecked, on life's fatal shore. 



86 AN AGE HENCE. 



THE HOURI. 

TAKE her, I care not, 
Though once she was mine, 
When youth was sacred 
And love divine. 

But now that she wanders, 
No more she seems 
Than the houri that flits 
In an Arab's dreams. 

I've drunk of the fountain, 
And should I deny 
The last draught, to my enemy. 
Famishing by? 

Drink, fool, then pillow 
Thy head on the breast 
That too oft hath known mine 
In happier rest I 



run ROSE. $7 



THE ROSE. 

ALL summer long, 
The rose implored me for a song — 
Languished before me, drew me with the lure 
Of a hundred charms to pour my soul into her : 
Outsmiled the morning, made the twilight glow, 
Bade the wind hush, the stream forget to flow, 
And hid in perfume, as I slumbered, stole 

Betwixt the wings of dreams into my secret soul. 

What song of mine, oh, lovely rose. 
Could sweeten silence, like the wind that blows 
With nightly amorous kisses on thy cheek ! 
Soft in that wind blow Persian songs and Greek — 
Sung long ago. 

By lovers in their tender morning glow : 
And all we dream, and all we say. 
Is tinctured by that far oflf day. 



88 AN AGE HENCE. 



THE REAPERS. 

ON th' yellow slope of a great cavern's eaves, 
That down the valley dripped perpetual streams, 
Which rose in vapory clouds, like giant's dreams, 
All the long day they bound the harvest sheaves, 
'Mid songs of birds, and whisperings of the leaves. 
And oft they saw the far half phantom gleams 
Of slumberous waters, through the glimmering beams 
Of heat that down the fence-rows winds and weaves. 
The mower's scythe clanged sweetly through the grain, 
That with a rustling sound o'er-swathed the flowers. 
Till bending toil relieved their odorous pain. 
And harvest songs made dance the jocund hours. 
While Pan from th' cavern heard, and sweet refrain 
Piped mellowly along the golden plain. 



A lover's abstraction. 89 



A LOVER'S ABSTRACTION. 



WHEN this poor heart is dust, and I no more 
Shall see thee, hear thee, thrill at thy caress, 
Or whisper that I love, what sore distress 
Shall seize my soul with pangs unknown before ! 

Still to love on, and on, still to adore 
When life has shrunk into a thought ; when less. 
And less, hope's anchor holds me to the shore. 
Drifting into infinity — possess 
The lingering desire, the passionate 
I/onging — I, who shall never more of thee 
Be known ! Oh, 'tis too horrible a fate ! 
Come let me clutch at straws, ere such a sea 
Drowns o'er my head and leaves me desolate — 
Kiss me, ere I have lost thee utterly ! 



90 AN AGE HENCE. 



11. 

Why, *twas a dream ! some night-mare of the mind, 
By fate conjured to mock a lover's bliss ; 
The moody shape dissolved at thy warm kiss, 
As clouds before a summer-breathing wind. 

Thy heart beats on my own ; tender and kind 
Thine eyes drink in my soul ; all fears I miss 
In the sweet circle of thine arms — in this 
Fate can not come, and death is left behind. 
Why, if my soul could ever leave thee here, 
Widowed and lorn, it could not further go 
Than thy breast warms the air, and lingering near. 
Would melt into thine own, as the late snow 
In Spring melts on some flower — or in that tear 
Thou would' St, thyself, dissolve, and with me go ! 



IN A WORLD APART. qi 



IN A WORLD APART. 
I. 

^'/^H, Love ! what land is this?" my fair one cried, 
V^ As changeful colors, like the heraldry 
Of silent angels, flashing suddenly, 
Made rainbow flutterings on our eyes, and died 
Low on the streams and flowery meadows wide. 
And little sparrows sang a sudden glee, 
While in the air we felt, but could not see, 
The passion of some goddess glorified ; 
Whose chariot down the slanting wind was borne, 
Throwing a dust of rose-leaves as it sped. 
O'er the curved vales and up the hills unshorn : 
From which a voice unto my lady said, 

" 'Tis free for you to wander as you list. 
Or make your own if your sweet fancy wist ! ' * 



92 AN AGE HENCE. 



II. 

Whence are these shadows, wavering in my room, 
And whence this breezy sound within my ears 
Of wild-wood minstrelsy ? and whence these tears 
Of pleasing sorrow, making misty gloom 
About my eyes ? I ask, I know not whom — 
Some flying Merlin, who looks back and hears, 
Laughing, and sinks among the hills and meres 
Of my lost heaven — while I shake the bloom 
Of fresh remembered dreams upon my heart, 
That lies below them like a buried thing. 
For this is waking back to loneliness 
When I had dreamed of paradise, and spring 
Perpetual, in a dainty world apart 
With my true love to worship and to bless. 



IN A WORLD APART. 93 



III. 

We were upon a little star, it seemed, 

No larger round than looks the harvest moon ; 

Half lost in flowers ; for every breath of June 

Went wandering round this little orb. I dreamed 

It was her butterfly, so fair it gleamed, 

Floating in azure to a merry tune 

Of winds, and waters falling. And aboon. 

Its splendid clouds into the heavens streamed 

lyike wings, that bore us far and far away. 

From pleasure unto pleasure — sweet, oh, sweet ! 

Transported in a glance we need not say 

How much we loved — we did not need repeat 

Mouth-phrases, as your common lovers do— 

We looked into each other's souls, and knew ! 



94 AN AGE HENCE. 



TO REALMS UNKNOWN BEFORE. 

WHO has the heart to deny, 
If I dream we shall rise again, 
'Neath some happier morning sky, 
In some gentler race of men ! 

And beyond all tenderness 

Of tongue to tell, shall meet. 
After this long distress. 

With a love divine and sweet. 

And into each other's eyes 
Looking, with tears, shall say, 

^ Under what distant skies 

Had we met ere this golden day?** 

And shall laugh, and shall weep, for bliss, 

And tremble with harmony : 
And lips shall melt in a kiss. 

Now pallid with misery. 

And living and loving so. 

Not unkindly, at last, shall death 

Take us from age, or woe. 
Like a flame blown out by the breath. 



TO REALMS UNKNOWN BEFORE. 95 

Like a flame new-lighted again, 

Shall we burn in some distant age, 
Ever with fairer men, 

On a grander and holier stage. 

And ever with wiser brains. 

And richer and truer hearts, 
Heirs of the lofty gains 

That time has given the arts. 

Till the secret is ours, one day. 

And brave in the mighty lore, 
With death we vanish away 

To realms unknown before ! 



96 AN AGE HENCE. 



THE HOUR OF PAN. 

IN the sweet hour of Pan, through ether came 
An evil genius, wandering at his will, 
In the glad summer-time, and all unheeding — 
Till *mong the flowers that staid a ravished stream. 
He spied a maiden slumbering at high-noon, 
With all the flowers about her crowding close, 
lyike lovely courtiers, lest the least annoy 
Might steal across the dreaming zephyr's wings. 
Silence above her leaned in amorous maze ; • 
And like a tender flame her beauty grew 
Upon the genius, till it seized him sore : 
x\nd sometimes like a tongue made eloquent 
With sweet persuasions, would it call him near. 
Who came right willingly, but could no where 
Weave arms about her, being impalpable. 
Nor soil her virgin lips with sinful kiss. 
And so, perforce, for joyance, would he breathe 
Himself into a serpent, lying near. 
And thus the maid encompass to his will. 

Hushed in his coils the slumbrous serpent lay 
Dreaming of Lilith, or the Thracian fair. 
When suddenly his small. eyes opened wide 
In the noon glare, and lean his head upreared, 



THE HOUR OF PAN. 



97 



While burnished coil slid over burnished coil 
With thrilling undulations, and he trailed 
His sinuous body near the sleeping maid, 
In a wild ecstasy, till at a sound 
Of human steps, he vanished like a gleam 
Of lightning down a craggy cloudland seen. 

But to the youth who came between old trees 
lyike morning through wan stars, the genius fled. 
And nestling round his heart, blew warm the flame 
Of sudden love, and bade his roving eye. 
Take in the loneliness of her, who slept 
By wild trees canopied, and couched in flowers. 

Desire^s strong wine flew mantling to his brain, 
And hints and sweets of old remembrances. 
From times long past — the blood^s inheritance, — 
Of beauty's conquest in some other life 
lyived joyously long since, began to urge : 
And sore the demon plied him with his arts ! 
But when he thought he'd conquered, chose the youth 
From all the flowers, a lily, which he laid 
Heart-troubled on her breast, and stole away. 



THE LORD OF LIFE, 



Lore. 



THE LORD OF LIFE. lOI 



THE LORD OF LIFE. 

IN a forest old, and tragic, 
With dark glooms and sullen magic, 
Was a fount, wherein the light, 
And shadow, played at day and night, . 
And sound and silence, rimmed, by turn. 
The margin of its grassy urn. 

Out of yawning aisles, in haste. 
Came one who would the waters taste, 
But stood looking long within. 
As if he would their secret win. 
Saw his meagre face and wan. 
Far into the depths withdrawn. 
And ghostly steed that by him stood : 
And then, dissolving in a flood. 
That down a chasm poured full fast. 
Saw the nations sweeping past. 
Frantic, moaning, and abhorrent 
Of the black resistless torrent, 
That to chaos, pours again. 
The kingdoms and the homes of men. 
Stooped, and drank the bitter wave, 
And left it flavor of the grave. 



I02 AN AGE HENCE. 

Kre he rode, with laughter grim, 
Down the forest hushed and dim. 

But the sun broke from the cloud, 
And the thrushes sang aloud 
A merry din in the quiet place. 
Till it smiled in flowers with a wondrous grace, 
And a thousand happy things 
Ran on the sward, or glanced on wings, 
Trll Echo, holding back her tresses, 
Listens, and calls, and inly blesses 
The tumult sweet, her heart longs after. 
And babbles back the fountain's laughter. 
Whilst deep, melodious, and strong. 
The wind poured forth his soul in song. 
Full of the secret of forest and sea. 
And the guarded lore of eternity. 

Heralded thus, came a shining youth. 
Fair to look upon as truth. 
And in the fountain stooped to look. 
Where it opened deep like the SibyPs book. 
He saw the mighty torrent sweep 
Into the vague and awful deep, 
Turgid with planetary woe — 
But smiled, for far in the gulf below. 
The sun shone through the wavering stream, 
And he saw as in a prophet's dream. 
The dead worlds glow to stars again. 
And sparkle into living men. 



THE LORD OF LIFE. IO3 

For death is but life's pioneer : 
Servant, not master ; hope, not fear ; 
And rides unknowing, far and late, 
At life's behest disguised in fate. 
And when he deems, with dreary scorn, 
He leaves behind him night forlorn, 
And grief and desolation brings. 
But sows the seeds of happier things. 
And might the remorseless demon turn, 
Rising from the funeral urn 
A golden vapor he might see. 
Which rhymes itself continuously 
With lush grasses, flowers, and trees. 
And yearning upward and on from these 
Through bird and beast, in air and fen, 
It wakes into perfect man again ! 

But the lyord of Life, still young and glowing, 
Looks deeper than the fountain's flowing. 
Piercing deep to the hidden springs 
Of action that underlie all things. 
And finds accordance where the ear, 
Of another, could only discord hear. 
Of olden enemies makes friends. 
Persuading to his mighty ends ; 
Sends them as envoys, with glacier, and fire, 
To widen the bounds of his vast empire. 
Whence east, and west, and south, and north. 
With his fair bride. Love, he looks far forth 
O'er realms and creatures in order moving. 
Thrilled with the rapture of living and loving. 



I04 



AN AGE HENCE. 



THE MIGHTY HARMONIES. 

FORTH from the heavens lean 
The mighty Harmonies, 
And try men's hearts, unseen, 
With sovereign melodies : 
Deeps of sound, and echoes of the deep, 
Sweeter than lips may story ! 

That thrill the sense and make the strong heart leap 
lyike a warrior forth to glory. 
But some they find o'er bold, 
And some are dull and cold. 
And some inconstant to the muses' strain — 
These, on their pinions fleet. 
They leave with soft disdain. 

But never the fates cut short the life, 
Whose heaven-appointed work remains undone : 
Rather they ripen it, like the generous sun. 
And keep it free from taint of mortal strife. 
Thus to great age, was Goethe's muse inspired. 
To finish what his eagle youth had planned ; 
And Milton, through the clouds of civil war. 
Glowed, like the heart of morning's golden star. 



THE MIGHTY HARMONIES. IO5 

With the vast dream that all his being fired : 
And in the evening were the embers fanned 
Into a bright and sunny flame, 
To light the heraldry of Chaucer's fame ! 

Young bards have died in flower of morning's prime : 
The song, half sung, has frozen on their lips. 
And many a bard has mourned the sad eclipse ; 
But who might prophecy their nobler rhyme ? 
The blasted tree brings forth the early fruit ; 
Song ripens soon when death gnaws at the root. 
And some by accident were wed 
To the long silence of the dead. 
What time they reached far down the moody night, 
At variance with the world's great heart. 
And struck strange chords, beyond the sight, 
To music out of tune with art. 



Io6 AN AGE HENCE. 



TO-MORROW AND TO-MORROW. 

WHY should I bend to times antique, 
Nor dare to trust this soul of mine, 
When through my tongue the ancients speak, 
Their glories in my actions shine ! 

A thousand marches further on, 
I greet the suns they longed to see, 

Pained with their yearnings yet, for dawn, 
And splendors which shall never be. 

Coined have I been so oft before, . 

I feel bold memories in my blood, 
And know the voices calling sore. 

From phantom lips beyond the flood. 



STOLEN BY MYSTERIES. 107 



STOLEN BY MYSTERIES. 

LINKED unto his glorious dream, 
The artist sits by the charmed stream, 
And moulds his visions in the clouds ; 
He sleeps, and they wrap him round like shrouds. 
By him the days run swift and sure, 
And the gods have given them many a lure 
Of bounty and blessing he never sees, 
For his eyes are stolen by mysteries. 
And his soul is thridden by songs, that flow, 
From stars to stars in deeps below. 

Ever to-morrow he will begin, 
To picture the glorious vision in, 
To the eye of the world, for the long acclaim 
That follows the earnest child of fame. 
But ever the morrow is up and away ! 
For swift are the feet of the flying day : 
And mocking youth hath flown by her side — 
The golden bridegroom and his bride ! 
The old man's hand no cunning knows : 
His smile fades out like a withered rose, 
Faded and wan grow his dreams, and drear. 
Is the silence that falls on the dead man's bier. 



I08 AN AGE HENCE. 

Who was that, with the days went by, 
And marked him with averted eye, 
By the silver shining stream, 
In idle dalliance with his dream? 
Gathering his robe of silence round. 
He stepped from the throng without a sound. 
His smile was satire, and cold, I ween, 
Were the hands that plied the chisel keen. 
The dreamer he carves to an image of death, 
And the dreams fade out at his icy breath. 
Slowly he worked, for the art was long, 
But deaf grew the ears to lips of song ; 
The hand grew palsied, the eyes grew dim ; 
And the angels grieved, who looked on him. 
For gaunt and wasted, a ghost he seemed, 
And not the glorious youth who dreamed. 
Not a line remained of folly. 
But remorseful melancholy. 



LIKE A DREAM. IO9 



LIKE A DREAM. 

THIS world, a pageant, greets my eyes, 
It triumphs and is gone. 
My senses, weary of surprise. 
Gaze at it half withdrawn. 

I only steadfast am, it goes, 

Dissolving like a dream ; 
The dust of yesterdays, time blows, 

Thick, where its banners gleam. 



no AN AGE HENCE. 



NATURE. 

AI^ONE, through the vast eternities, 
In silence my glowing dreams I wrought 
In flowers of form, and destinies, 
Still nearing my ancient thought. 

Touching, escaping, the intricate deep, 
Whence life, distorted, may issue through, 

Madness and horror I charmed in their sleep, 
Unmoulded, and formed anew. 

Dreadful, the change, to my creatures then — 
Death ! they called it, nor knew in the hour. 

At my touch, they flamed into mightier men, 
With the aeons for their dower ! 

The crawling races, the globe around, 

Strained the coil that drew along, 
The car of the gods, with a heavy sound 

Time sweetened into song. 

Lo, they delved i' th' dark, like elves, and laid 
The deep foundations of these times, 

In the granite of customs and laws, I made. 
Like the measures of perfect rhymes. 



AN ANCIENT PORTRAIT. Ill 



AN ANCIENT PORTRAIT. 

WRINKIyED, and bald, and wan, and palsey-shaken, 
Out of his bleared eyes looks the sad old man, 
Nor sees to-day, but rapt and fancy taken, 

lyives in the past as only dreamers can. 
And smiles, and feels no pain, though restless finger 

Of the grim artist, time, deep etchings trace : 
The acid can not eat where fondly linger 

The old-time loves and days of vanished grace. 

Or, is this some dim face that out of story, 

Peers with old eyes into the heart of time. 
And eats its mystery, and scorns the glory 

The mob approved, and poets told in rhyme ? 
Some old, despairing face, the pitiless ocean 

Sucks from its cave, and bears aloft the while. 
To drown again, with thunderous commotion, 

About the roots of some defiant isle ! 



112 AN AGE HENCE. 



Some thought the gods let fall, in weary brooding 

Upon the fate that wastes them like the stars ! 
The last bare husk, the shriveled soul including, 

That once seemed master, not the sport of wars ! 
Alas, how poor ! and weak, and melancholy ! 

Where is thy youth, thy passions, and the fire 
That burned through these, and left the ash of folly 

White strewn, above the embers of desire ? 

Youth, like a losel maiden, caught the glowing 

Of some fresh face, and loosed her arms and fled, 
But robbed thee, ere she went, whilst thou, unknowing. 

Smiled in thy dreams, and hugged dull care, instead : 
And from her lips sipped poisons cold and bitter, 

That nursed thy wit, but wasted flesh and bone. 
Till to thy heart the thin blood turned, scarce fitter, 

Than the dank stream that crawls about a stone. 



THE LEMAN. II3 



THE LEMAN. 

WHOSO in the field is singing, 
This drear and lonesome night ? 
His voice through my soul goes ringing, 
With love and its past delight. 

Father and mother are sleeping. 
My lover lies under the ground, 

Why should I sit here weeping? 
I will rise and follow the sound. 

Oh, mother, I am aweary, 
I weep till the dawn of day : 

Forget me as something erie, 
That stole to the far away. 

And father, you sigh as you slumber, 
You chide me for grieving so sore ; 

How oft have I felt that I cumber 
The threshold of heaven's door ! 

I kiss you, forgive me, remember 
No more, who gave you such pain, 

In memory flash no ember, 
To light me home again. 



114 AN AGE HENCE. 

Shall I robe me in silken vesture, 

In garments all agleam, 
With jewels, that flash and gesture, 

Like sunlight on a stream? 

I will go in my garment simple, 
L/ike a lily, all in white, 

And the winds that waver and rimple. 
Shall herald me to-night. 

Oh, lyove, how your wings upbear me, 
How the world sinks down below ! 

On thy heart like a jewel wear me, 
Wherever thou shalt go. 



THE KNIGHT AND THE FIEND. 



THE KNIGHT AND THE FIEND. II7 



THE KNIGHT AND THE FIEND. 

WHO rides in silence, with the knight, 
Along the lonely forest way, 
Perusing with a fiend's delight, 

The thoughts that on his visage play ? 

And deeper drinks the wine of thought, 
And enters in, and stirs the deep. 

Till visions rise with glories fraught, 
That make the stout heart in him leap I 

The heathen hosts he overcomes. 

In foreign lands, and hears the acclaim, 

Of crowds, come mixed with rolling drums, 
And trumpet's blast, and hurrying fame. 

Of lineage old, long dispossessed 
Of regal power, he claims his own, 

With armies gathering east and west. 
To shake the tyrant from his throne I 

The fiend remits — his eyes look out. 
To find him drawing nearer home : 

He hears aloft the March winds shout, 
I<ike demons down the molten dome. 



Il8 AN AGE HENCK. 

And through the open, far away, 
He sees the castle of the king, 

Jeweled in the dazzling day, 
Gleam like a sapphire in a ring. 

Right wrathfully his eye-balls glare. 
He takes his horn and blows a blast, 

That shakes the towers unaware, 

And makes the monarch turn aghast ! 

Right then there steps before the knight, 
A sorry steed, and one thereon, 

Who seems a spectre whose dim flight, 
Was intercepted by the dawn. 

A thousand years might not so age, 
A man, but he should fairer be, 

The grave itself, could not engage, 
To picture so, his destiny. 

The knight recoils, the charger bold. 

Shudders, and whines, with trembling knee 
** Who art thou ? '' Came the answer cold, 
" Thy evil genius : come with me P* 



WASTED HOURS. II9 



WASTED HOURS. 

WHITHER go the wasted hours? 
Sad abortions of old time — 
In a lone and dismal clime 
Where bloom no amaranthine flowers. 

There they grow to shapes of fear ; 

And with intolerable hate, 

In the darkness they await 

The soul that wronged them here ! 

Of the hours be mindful then : 
All are needed, when, at last, 
Life into the gulf is cast, 
Whence we can not come again. 

Then our masters, now our slaves, 
See them hold the fatal cup ! 
As we mix, we drink it up — 
God make light the bitter waves ! 



I20 AN AGE HENCE. 



THE SIRENS, 

NOT to fly forward, is my will, 
To close mine ears, or turn mine eyes away, 
But through my soul to let the music thrill, 
Of the sweet sirens, in their charmed bay. 
For oh, the sea is dreary, and the toil 

Is grievous, and our glory ends in pain : 
Why should we bind ourselves with many a coil, 
Who know that life and all its cares are vain. 



MOI.OCH. 121 



MOLOCH. 

CAN the sea give up its dead, 
That have lain in its caverns long, 
Hushed by the tempests' commotion, 
And in the pause of the ocean 
By the mermaid's crooning song ! 

Ah, cruel, to speak the charm, 
Might waken their wondrous sleep ! 
For they have lost the sorrow 
Of life in the long to-morrow 
Of dream in the vasty deep ! 

They roll with the rolling sea, 
But themselves, severe as art. 

Care not for the waves' derision : 

They lie in awful vision 
Of nature's inmost heart ! 

Above them the white gull flies, 

And the eagle, high over head. 

And the ships, and the wasting glory. 
Of life, but it seems like a story 

Unreal and fancy-bred ! 



122 AN AGE HENCE. 

For the white gull dies on the wing, 

The eagle falls prey to the deep ; 

And round them lie wrecks unnumbered, 
And bones of crews that have slumbered 

For ages, a ghastly heap ! 

And if they look up to the shores 
Through the jasper pale of their tomb. 
On island, and mainland, the sadness 
Of life and death, in their madness. 
Make ever a horrible doom. 

Not death, but the living, who slay ! 
Life makes a gorge of the dead : 

*' Kill thou, and feast ! " is the fated 

Cry, of all the created. 
Or they perish, themselves, instead ! 

The strong hold the weak their prey : 
The worm makes a meal for the dove : 

My lady the lamb devours. 

That was slain, as it fed on the flowers — 
Herself a sweet morsel for love ! 



LORDS OF CYCLES. 1 23 



LORDS OF CYCLES. 

WHEN a thousand years have gone, 
And a thousand thousand sped, 
Still far oflf will shine the dawn, 
Not to be interpreted. 

You and I shall meet once more, 
Lords of cycles ; but, I pray, 

What should fortune keep in store 
Were not better spent to-day ! 

I^et the spendthrift genius fling, 
Stars, like ducats, down the skies : 

If he lose by squandering. 
Wealth's his poverty's disguise ! 



THE FLIGHT FROM ACTIUM, 



THK FJUIGHT FROM ACTIUM. 127 



THE FLIGHT FROM ACTIUM. 
Charmion. 

EMPRESS of Egypt, rouse you from this gloom ! 
This stony sorrow, marble makes us all. 
Ivike antique imagery your maids lie strewn 
In heart-beseeching attitudes of woe, 
And the dumb sailors look with pitying eyes 
Upon the fallen port of Antony, 
And move among the cordage with no sound. 
Beshrew thy heart, this grief is but a cloud 
That pours itself to water festal flowers ! 
What charm for thee in melancholy's face, 
Whose own might gild misfortune's with a smile ! 
Come, come, relight the world ! the sun goes down ! 

C1.EOPATRA. 

Go to him, Charmion, I am all undone — 
My beauty withers on me like a weed : 
Wit, from my tongue, an unstrung arrow falls ; 
Grace now is contumely — I am a flame 
Misfortune's bitter winds have blown so low, 
I hide in embers of my former self. 

Ivook not upon me, let me cower alone ! 
But oh, bethink yourself— rouse all your soul — 



128 AN AGE HENCE. 

Liglit sweet persuasion at my lowly spark. 

And steal upon him, wary, eloquent, — 

A voice, a charm, and win him back to me ! 

Serenest courage shine upon your brow, 

Follow to lead, retreat but to draw on. 

My genius goes with thine ; oh, give not o*er ! 

Antony. 

It ever was my wont, to feel my soul 
With mightest influence wield the thoughts of men ! 
For I in many lives have lived my own — 
Become of crowds the impulse, and the fire 
That fused all passions to a single flame : 
Reaching abroad for empire through the arms 
Of hosts resistless : with their larger joy 
Thrilled to the love of twenty thousand men ! 
But all my Titan strength is flown away — 
My glory steals a shadow ; all undone, 
My limbs lopped from me, I am dead to fame ! 

Charmion. 

Oh, Antony, when night comes lowering down, 
Shall it be said all golden days are flown ? 
In all the mighty heavens, or on earth. 
Is there no fortune but ill fortune, now ? 
Sire, what is loss but larger room to win ! 
'Tis but the spending out of princely hands 
Gifts, that the gods give to us, if we will — 
And if we will not, we are rich as they. 



THE FI.IGHT FROM ACTIUM. 1 29 

It says to Caesar, *' Take the gift from me 
Of fleets and armies, wealth, and wide empire ! 
I am aweary now : I sail far oflf, 
Beyond the sea, to islands of large ease. ' ' 

Must all thy days whirl from thee, lost in war, 
Whilst thou playest tragedy before high gods 
To move them at their languid festivals ! 
I^et Caesar pose before them — rant his hour ! 
But thou, oh, son of Hercules ! we bear 
Over the wrinkled waters, far away. 
Day shall lack margin — through the lids of morn 
We'll steal like music, into larger worlds. 
For level lie their waters like my hand. 
And never a league but starts some island forth, 
lyike a strong swimmer rising from the brine. 
To cry thy coming to some lofty shore. 
Where, sire, who knows but, crowded on the strand, 
Great Caesar, Alexander, heroes, kings 
Of the olden time, shall welcome you with joy. 

Flames the old color in thy cheeks, great lord ! 
Then put thy soul to Charmion's lips and hear. 
When like Apollo thou didst follow love, 
Spurning the brazen battle at thy back. 
How poor seemed all at hazard, fleets and realms. 
To her who fled before, and drew thee on ! 
The world that was not yours to lose, is gone, 
While he who can not keep it, wears the crown ; 
But love who made that lost world but the ring 
To set the jewel of my queen's heart in — 



130 an age hknck. 

Antony. 

Out serpent ! tune your wistful tongue far off ! 
What insolence to weave the sophist's web, 
Bold harlot spider, over one long snared 
By artful Egypt, and by fortune curst ! 
What malice, too, to speak to me of kings — 
Kings of old times, and heroes of renown — 
And me invite to share their blissful isles ! 
Me, fugitive ! Why better far to steal 
To helps remotest corner unobserved, 
And be fed on by vultures in the dark, 
Than show my face among colossal kings. 
And hear the thunderous laughter of the gods ! 

My fingers like a leash of tigers, writhe 
To tear these eyes that yielded to her lure. 
The old heroic life had gone indeed. 
When trumpet's blast of triumph less could woo 
The lion in me, than her woman's tongue ! 

Charmion. 

Now by the gods of Rome, art thou a man ! 
How many in this wondrous world of ours. 
From shepherd's loins, or scullion's baser blood. 
Have risen from exhalations to be stars ! 
Before them at the threshold, strange, and vast. 
As they had peered into another world, 
Lay glittering populous empires, proud and old, 
And seas that toiled with fleets, like dragons, chained, 



THE FLIGHT FROM ACTIUM. 13I 

And envoys long at parle, squadrons afield. 

Men murmuring hoarse, and rumor on their tongues 

Finding fleet stepping, arson with his torch 

Giving wolf's eyes to darkness, and the wand 

Of crafty statesmen lulling reason down, 

With specious, soft enchantments — yea, all these 

Before them at the threshold, strange and vast, 

And they, unknown, jostled even by slaves. 

But thou, long wont to conquer ! at thy beck 
Afric and Asia rise in armed might. 
Squadron on squadron rolling like a sea 
That pours a deluge to the highest hills ! 
Thou'st given a realm to Caesar, what of that ! 
If thou'rt enamoured of this trade of war, 
Thou more than Alexander — 

Antony. 

Sacrilege ! 
She plays with language as with loaded dice — 
And does not understand that I have given, 
No petty realm, but the huge world away ! 

Is it from scorn you paint a dance of life. 
And pyramid its glories to the skies. 
When great resolves lie perished at their noon, 
And on the rack my bold heart breaks at last ! 
Who would hold up the dying on lost fields 
To see the victor triumph ? Who would sing 
Before the gates of hell a paean proud ? 

Oh, I am lost — am broken in my prime ! 



132 an age hence. 

Charmion. 

What wandering shadow of stupendous fame, 
Coasting the glimmerings of the nether deep, 
Caesar, or Alexander, but would yield 
His unsubstantial glories for your hour ! 
Would count one glance of Cleopatra's eyes — 
I/Ove-darting-madness armor can not fence ! — 
As of more worth than conquest of a realm. 
For well thou knowest this paragon waits not 
With beauty to make conquest, but through it 
Pours such a flood of wit and eloquence. 
And graces, unimagin'ble of art. 
In modulations sweet, and gestures proud. 
Or languishing, that all the dazzled sense 
At once ta'en captive, loves beyond itself. 

Antony. 

Now, by the gods ! — were't not I scorn to make 
War upon women, though I fall through them — 
Down hand ! the lion that hath roared with joy 
Against a hunt of kings, and beat them off, 
Spurning their aspen spears, and gorged with blood — 
Something within me, conqueror of myself. 
Throttles that lion, bids him swallow rage ! 

Charmion. 

Aye, so it should ! dost think the mighty gods 
Gripe hard through flesh, when heaven has lost 's ac- 
cord? 



THE FLIGHT FROM ACTIUM. 1 33 

Hast never, with thy vast, unwieldy hosts, 
Sprawled half-way o'er a province, on a day 
Come battering at some Syrian city's gates. 
Arch-terrible, and found them still denied 
By some bold wit that laughed at war's alarms, 
And with no legions clothed his strategy 
To beat at force with force, but kept thee off ! 
And hast not felt, as glowering down the vale, 
The Bacchic rout defeated, rolled away, 
That thou would' st give this wandering pageantry 
To haunt his wary walls, and drive him forth. 
Breasted against thee, as two eagles flown 
Sheer upward into molten day, contend 
Out of the world's eye? Sink the warrior, then ! 
For there be subtler influences at work 
On this old earth, than ever conqueror knew, 
With the triumphant furies at his heel. 

Antony. 

Three days I have not tasted food, and sleep 
Shrinks from my lurid eye-balls, as from fire 
The darkness reels, but oh, the dreams I've had ! 
Fallen divinities, and tumbled thrones. 
And sunken fleets, and armies wasted down 
To skeletons the desert winds moan through. 
And ever as I shrunk, a phantom gray. 
Through ruins that once towered aloft for me, 
I heard low- voiced murmurs, and I saw 
Starred in the shadows, woman's witching face. 
Still masking treachery with an amorous eye ! 



134 AN AGE HENCE. 

The foul fiend take thee, and thy tigress queen— 
I care not for the magic that you vaunt ! 
Had I the valiant hearts that once I drew 
To outstare death, and danger make afraid, 
I'd gleam, once more, the lightning of the storm — 

Charmion. 

Aye, so thou wouldst ! But when all's done, the sword 
But takes the outer citadel of life, 
And power however pinnacled aloft. 
Must take the uncertain downward plunge to night. 
Hear the brute waves that lap the vessel's side, 
Shouldering the hulk each to his fellow, on. 
With strident murmurs straining to the port. 
Good fortune in the wind singing aloft — 
Sets but the North his steel against the prow. 
Yawns the black gulf, and all the obsequious host 
Push her to hell ! 

Cleopatra. 

Away, thou torment ! go ! 
There is no fluting of my weary love 
In all this trumpet wooing ! Go thy ways ! 

What Antony ! my tiger ! of my breast 
A pillow make, and on my rocking heart 
Find slumber and forgetfulness of woe ! 
Or if you choose to beat me with your hand, 
Or toss my quivering body to the sea, 
I will crawl back like to a faithful hound. 
And court thy anger till it sting again. 



THK FLIGHT FROM ACTIUM. I35 

Thou art my god ! do to nie as thou wilt, 
Curse me, or spurn me, all is sweet to me. 

I thought this day to plunge me in the deep, 
l/ove-lorn, in grief, and frightened at my lord, 
But when a roaring cavern at the prow 
Called hoarsely to me through its dripping jaws, 
I shrunk aghast, in terror at myself, 
That I should cast into the dragon's maw 
What once was treasured in your straining armSo 

Charmion. 

Still silent Antony, dost thou not know 
Her heart is breaking — let it break indeed — 
The strings snap audibly, too rudely rasped 
By anger, now the festival is o'er. 

Cleopatra. 

Cold is thy hand, my lord, cold as my own — 
Death feeling death, I grope, as in a tomb. 
And phantom sounds come to me in the night. 
Echoes from times departed, mirth that jars, 
And songs as faint as dreams in other lives. 
All's dead within me but the love that yearns — 
And when you go from out this life, my lord, 
And come again, and go, and come again, 
And find, upon a day, a broken tomb 
In some lost city crumbling by the wave. 
Thrust with your hand among the cerements 
And find my heart, still warm with love of thee ! 
Disturbed you'll stand, a lonely traveler, 



136 AN AGE HENCE. 

Night drawing on apace, and hints of days 
Lived long ago, will wake a wild surmise — 
A shadow stealing frorn the ruined cell 
Will whisper, "Cleopatra" ! 

Charmion. 

Is he quick, 
That he should hear such melody unmoved ! 
Dolor and passion, like the changing tides 
Beat on him, and recoil, as from a rock. 

Cleopatra. 

Is this, or is this not, my Antony ! 
I'll beat upon this marble wherein lies 
A lion sleeping. Antony ! what, ho ! 
Come forth ! You shall not sulk within your cave, 
And sear your soul with sullen reasoning 
Like poisonous acids trickling to your heart ! 

Had I no rights, no hopes, and no despairs. 
That I should see you stride away to Rome 
A huge Colossus, through the dewy brine — 
The little rout of ships and soldiers following, 
And faint halloos blown from the further shore, 
What time I helped you to proud victory — 
Now left forgotten on the jeering seas ! 
There throned with cold Octavia — Never start, 
And with a heavy gesture beat me off ! 
For I have nursed your blood beneath my heart, 
And borne you children, and I sorely know. 



THE FLIGHT FROM ACTIUM. 1 37 

Though thou didst revel in the richest love 
That ever paradised a mortal man — 

But what a curse hath woman in her love ! 
She grows so abject to the man she loves, 
She yields up beauty that might charm a god, 
And wit that would a circle draw in heaven, 
To be the servant of his humors dull, 
The target of his frowns and coward flings, 
Whilst glory seeks he elsewhere and forgets. 

Antony. 

I have neglected fortune for a tongue 
That rails on me — and from the threshold loud 
Of vasty empires, and the beckoning hands 
Of deities, have wrenched myself away ! 
Oh, Cleopatra, you and I are locked 
Into a barren jail, and dungeoned deep 
In the wide pit of the world ! The lights are out, 
And all to-morrows will be jailers^ lanterns ! 

Cleopatra. 

The inconstant fates were never amorous long 
Of any hero — be he ne'er so bold 
They'll break him on the wheel : and though you strive 
lyike Hercules gone mad, they'll pull you down. 

But is it gracious of my Antony 
That he regret the world he flung away — 
Daughter of kings I am, and know my worth ! 



138 an age hence). 

Antony. 

Your hand, divine one ! Let me live again ! 
I do repent me that I sunk so low, 
As thus to lie in sullen misery, 
Outside the majestic pillars of the world. 
My own hands flung the adamantive gates 
Behind me — 

C1.EOPATRA. 

And shall open them again. 

Antony. 

Nay, never more. And yet I shall not grieve : 
For I threw love and empire in the scale. 
And empire bounded upward and away. 
My soul was in your body prisoned fast 
In paradise, and pinioned on your heart, 
To its voluptuous swell it rose, and swooned, 
And sunk into its paradise again. 

Charmion. 

Now, by my soul ! he bends him to her toils ! 
lyike a man dazed with liquor, he hath drunk 
Too deeply at her eyes, and vain desires 
Crowd tip-toe in him ; anger slinks away ; 
Despair, out-poisoned, in delirium 
Pulls down the toppling world upon itself, 
And dotes amid the crush of empires old. 



the fi.ight from actium. 1 39 

Antony. 

The grandeur of old days steals on my heart, 
The light you shed like roses in their bloom, 
The wit so apt, allusions full of flame. 
The intense spirit throned in perilous eyes ! 
Though I am savage in my warlike moods, 
Sunk in my griefs, and whetted with sharp speech, 
You wake the very summer at my core ! 

Charmion. 

Ho, there, Ansartus, wine for Antony ! 
And bid the cooks prepare an instant feast — 
And rouse the sleeping music on the lyre. 
To sparkle into madrigals, and spin 
The maidens into dances in a trice ! 
We* 11 make this wild demoniac night, a gem 
For hell to pluck at. Ho, there, wine and song 1 



140 AN AGE HENCE. 



THE VANQUISHED. 

OH, the strong joy of warriors in the field ! 
Castled in armor, seiged in glorious fight, 
The valiant set against the valiant — 
The hum of battle and the loud uproar. 
Poured in upon them with enormous sound, 
That sings the live blood to a leaping flame, 
And natural courage swells into a god's ! 
The dazzling prize of empire held aloft. 
The arbitration of a moment wins — 
Aye ! but the vanquished ! low he falls indeed : 
The victor's foot is on him — time and tide 
Flow over him — to-morrow knows him not. 
The king hath lost his empire, and the knight 
Flits a dim shadow, far and far from home. 



IMMOLATION. 141 



IMMOLATION. 

WHEN from the battle, home her lover comes, 
Triumphant rumor heralding from far. 
With doubt she sees the war-horse stepping slow, 
Clouded about with solemn soldiery. 
And misses sound of silver carroling 
From trumpets blown, and sight of banners gay. 

With frantic haste she meets him like the wind, 
And all her soul burns luminous in her eyes, 
And searches through and through him, hot and chill. 
With passionate dread, and longing, and dismay. 

The solemn knights bear in their wounded lord, 
The leech attends, his ominous brows grow dark. 
Wonder it seemed, from clear gay atmosphere 
Of sovereign May, what shadows did distil ! 
For irksome grew the pageantry of war. 
The banners gathered mildew where they hung, 
And frenzied fear gripped coldly at each heart. 

A desperate longing lurks within his eyes — 
The yearning of the dying for its own — 
Madness that needs an eloquence of speech, 
Its terror honied in a phrase ot love. 
By hot enchanting tongue — and his so mute ! 



143 AN AGE HENCE. 

But she is smitten with a wild surmise — 

She flings her from her women, like a swan 

Shot in mid-heaven, and totters to his feet. 

He may not hide the secret wound he bears, 
The grievous wound, the mortal wound that burns 
And feeds upon his vitals, as hot flame. 
But reels into her arms less quick than dead, 
Groaning aloud to hear her curdling cry. 

** Nay, do not hide the wound ! Uis mine and thine ! 
And fierce the joy to feel its kindred sting ! 
Yea, but I will unbind thee, dear, my lord ; 
My haste can brook no gesture of delay ! 
Oh, dazzling flesh, persuasion soft and dear ! 
Love's majesty ! corroded thus, and slain. 
My heart will burst to curse the savage gods. 
That beat about the earth, like fiends of old, 
Dissatisfied and longing for men's blood ! 
These gods of war, that smite the loveliest, 
And feel no pain to tread a hero down, 
Or set accursed heel upon his heart ! 
That snuff the odor of a dying groan. 
As I, the red rose, by the garden wall ! 

** Yet, by these cruel gods, I do implore 
You tell me what your furtive eyes would hide ! 
I have a curdling fear, you follow far — 
Your feet are at departure while they stay — 
You see beyond my eyes one beckoning ! 
Short is the shrift, and forth I' 11 fare with thee, 
For there's no art can medicine this pain. 



IMMOI.ATION. 143 

Couldst thou not wait ? Up, up the turret stairs — 
I'll fling me with thee wide into the morn ! 

** Help, help, he faints ! Nay, back, ye awe-struck fools! 
He is all mine — I bid ye come not nigh ! 
Get to your whisperings and wait for age — 
For us, the gates we force, and vanish through ! 

** Ivord ! how he gasps and pants for vital air, 
And how my heart comes surging to my throat ! 
'Tis the last step — we mount into the light. 

* * So far below the mighty river runs 
The rocks rough gauntlet, in a wild uproar. 
That midway from the summit, dies the sound, 
To softest murmurs, like young winds at play — 
And we who dash ourselves from the bold steep, 
Shall disembodied float in the pure air, 
Before we touch the elemental strife. 

*' See how the morning holds his torch aloft, 
And makes the dismal world bloom back to day ! 
Romance is on the waters, and the dales 
Gleam spiritual through their mist of flowers. 
Forests are at their pseans, down the winds 
Mixed with sweet sounds the swallows find their way. 
'Tis the choice time of nature, forth we fare 
With royal heralds — take us, gods unknown ! 



144 AN AGE HENCE. 



ON READING SULLY'S HENRY OF NAVARRE. 

AS lightning on a cloudy night, 
When all the hooded stars retire, 
One moment glances keen and white 
From out of heaven's inmost fire — 
The trees stand out, the rivers gleam, 

The castles mantle to the sky, 
And men start forward as in a dream 
Across the stage of destiny ! 

The blinding radiance dies amain, 

Even in its zenith flits away : 
The night floods over tower and plain, 

And fills the rim of yesterday. 
The wide theatre silent lies. 

The genius slumbers on his throne, 
The muses with wide open eyes 

In tranced visions dream alone. 

So, when I Sully's pages turn. 

The magician waves his wand for me, 
The sacred dust leaps from its urn 

And leads once more its chivalry. 
But lo ! the garish day flames in. 

And all the beauty and romance 
Flits ghostly from the glare and din, 

Back to the twilights of old France. 



THE CATARACT. 145 



THE CATARACT. 

THE heat-lightning winks 
His drowsy lids under, 
While low on the night sinks 
The cataract's thunder. 

lyike a serpent overtoiled, 

Down the green ledge, asleep, 
His black length uncoiled. 

He slips to the deep. 



FIENDS OF THE MIDNIGHT. 



FIENDS OF THE MIDNIGHT. I49 



FIENDS OF THE MIDNIGHT. 

First Fiend. 

OUT of your grave, brother ! 
Come, let us wander ! 
*Tis the old moon, no other, 

That leers over yonder, 
And nods, and beckons, and blinks, half asleep. 

But ready for gossip ! Come, out of it leap ! 
Can*t be you're enamoured 

Of the lean worm so soon, 
Though his tongue is all glamoured 

With the sweets of the rune 
He found in the brain of a poet hard by ! 

But these faded green rhymes, should not fool 
you and I, 
Who may cull for ourselves — 

And the worm, let me say. 
While he riots and delves. 

With his rhymes mixes clay : 
For wisdom and fashion 

Are laid side by side, 
And beauty and passion — 

The beast and his bride ! 



150 AN AGE HENCE. 

My way is, to rise, then, 
And snuff the East wind, 

At midnight, when live men 
With slumber are blind. 

If you like moralizing. 
At your service, I crave. 

To show how surprising, 
Is the wit of the grave. 
For one lies there and broods, 

Grown tired of long rest, 
And the black solitudes 

To his thought yield their best. 
Look out for the edge, there, 
It crumbles ! Your hand ! 

Place your knee on the ledge, there. 
Now, firmly you stand. 

^ , - The moon goes down. 

Ugh ! this air makes me shiver ! 

And the night in her shroud, 
lyies drowned in the river 

Of yon mirky cloud ! 
No cheer on the earth lies, 

No peace in the tomb. 
Death makes me o'er wise 

And saddens my doom I 
First Fiend. 
I beg you will pause ! 

I like not your folly ! 
In death there's no cause 

For dark melancholy. 



FIENDS OF THK MIDNIGHT. I5I 

If thoughts of the past make 

A coil in your breast, 
I beg you'll a kiss take, 

And set it at rest. 
The touch of real flesh to 

Us fellows long dead, 
Is like wine in our bones — whew! 

You draw back instead ! 
My instinct's so human, 

That real flesh and blood, 
Be its sex man or woman, 
I have not withstood. 

But the least said, the best said, 
A truce, we won't quarrel — 
A man who's been long dead 
Is exceedingly moral ! 

The ploughman I've followed — 
His horses would shy, 
But he whistled and hollowed. 

And knew me not nigh. 
And the maid with her lover, 

I've held to my side, 
Nor the youth could discover. 

Why his suit she denied. 
Why she grew cold, nor why 

He grew cold in his wooing. 
He knew not, but I 
Was his love's undoing. 
Second Fiend, 
Look out there, don't stumble 
In that rut of a grave 1 



153 AN AGE HENCE. 

Mind your feet, be more humble ! 

Why, brother, your slave ! 
Something new you are leading 

First time for a walk? 
Well, you for good breeding, 

And amiable talk ! 
My lantern I'll loan ye ! 

First Fiend, 
Thanks, Jack ! wandering fellow — 

First time since I've known ye, 
Your bones looked so yellow ! 

Second Fiend, 
Black beetles and night flies 

Buzzed and droned round my lamp. 
And the clouds from the skies 

Hung heavy and damp, 
While the fever I led on 

To the dens of the poor, 
Where the limbs the plague fed on 

Are scorched beyond cure. 

First Fiend, 
Here's sport ! a squat toad 

Suck's a viper's chill breath ! 

Third Fiend. 
Ho, brother, what load 

Encumbers your death. 
That in stupor you walk. 

Uncanny and grim, 
When such excellent talk 

Wakes the midnight dim? 



FIENDS OF THE MIDNIGHT. I53 

Ghost. 
Away, foul tormentor ! 

What invisible power 
Thus hateful centres 

Its spell round my hour! 

Second Fiend, 
Perhaps he love-lorn, 

Laid down in his bed ! 
Take comfort, be sworn 

The maid will soon wed ! 

First Fiend. 
Dead spouse under greensward 

Has no part in to-morrow, 
So his wife takes a new lord 

To solace her sorrow. 
Out of sight, out of mind, 

The old saw, remember ! 
lyove likes not to bind 

Quick fire to dead ember ! 

Third Fiend. 
Read him some epitaphs, 

They are so amusing. 
He must smile, for the devil laughs, 

When he's perusing ! 

Second Fiend. 
Or bring him black cherries 

Whose plump cheeks were fed, 
Like these bloated strawberries, 

On the dust of the dead. 



154 AN AGE HENCE. 

First Fiend. 
Or roses, whose passion 

Some pauper endues 
With odour and fashion 

And delicate hues. 
Not poetic, I own. 

But the things we delight in, 
Take savour and tone 

Where the eye would take blight in. 

Cock Crows. The fiends vanish. 

Ghost. 
Oh, thou Immortal ! 

Shorn of my power, 
Thrust from thy portal, 

Is this, my dower ! 
Famed was I, when living. 

Conqueror of men. 
Stem, but forgiving, 

Majesty, then. 
Though now my dominion 

Has shrunk to a tomb. 
Clipped the bold pinion 

That ventured on doom ; 
Still with the mighty dead 

Give me to dwell, 
Though throned in the lurid 

Fastness of hell ! 

Low thunder. The dawn appears. 



THE OWI.. 155 



T 



THE OWL. 

'HE wintry boughs encrusted white 
With rime of snow, and far away, 
The wan moon sinking, out of sight, 
In frozen clouds, at break of day. 

The bird of night is dim descried 
In the stark branches, brooding late, 

I^ike some dark soul the heavens denied, 
And left to memory and fate. 

He follows winter, harsh, and slow, 
About the world, and sees forlorn, 

All dismal things that death can show 
Upon the crumbling edge of morn. 



156 AN AGE HENCE. 



Unmoving rivers, lakes fast bound, 
No star in heaven, night still low, 

The earth in shroud, and from the ground, 
The graves, half-rising, through the snow. 

Along the iron coast, the sea. 

Tumbling its bitter waves, makes moan, 
To the icy wind, and from his tree, 

He flits with his secret, dread and lone. 

Night beckons him, he flits away, 

Over the low hills, at her ear — 
Fiend and familiar ! welcome, day ! 

Whatever the sorrow you bring us near. 



A SUSSEX IDYL. 



A SUSSEX IDYI*. 159 



A SUSSEX IDYL. 

AY, who shall tell the tremulous birth of love, 
Or dress with gossamer his infant wings ? 
Ere the tongue coin its amorous currency 
To commerce with our ears, the child has grown 
Into a valiant youth that laughs at bars, 
Or tries conclusions with the elders : 
Fences with wit's light rapier, loads a song 
So honey-sweet with metaphor, its wings 
Cloy at my lady's ear, like melody 
Upon Apollo's string, or a great gold bee, 
Adust with half the pollen of the morn, 
Fall'u rapturous on a new blown rose for joy ! 

She was the fairest of the little brood 
That nursed and played about the cottage door. 
And grew in modest loveliness each day, 
Till all the family hung upon the child. 
Who in their thoughts and on their tongues was ever. 
How pleased she was to win the infant boy 
Fretting the mother, at her careful toil. 
And dance and sing him till he crowed with joy : 
Or gather all the little ones at eve. 
To tell of wondrous fairies in the wood. 
And where the moon came from, above the pines 
In looking on them, with her silvery face, 



l6o AN AGK HENCE. 

Or where the river ran, or the late swans 
Went flying toward, adown the autumn sky. 
Till all the house grew still, and from her lamp 
The o'er tired mother would look up, and smile, 
To see the little, white robed troop, anon. 
Marshalled by Mary for the good-night kiss. 
Slip, dainty elves, like moonlight from the room. 
To wholesome pillows and their simple dreams. 
Up to her husband would she look and smile, 
Who answered with a smile, the silent man. 
And both to musing would fall back again. 
And both of Mary musing, and no word be said. 
For speech grows silent where the range is small. 
And William's feet had never wandered far — 
His little world, the worn and level fields. 
Ringed round with pines, o'er which his neighbor's 

smoke 
Curled lazily ; the pastures, and the corn 
In long straight rows, kept clean as sifted sand, 
His orchard, horse, his oxen and lean kine, 
The long low house, and lowly barns built near, 
His ancient slave slow moving at his feet. 
But that his fields were poor, and scanty crops 
Were garnered in his barns, for all his labor. 
And that his little family grew apace, 
With punctual hunger pricking him to toil. 
The man had been content to live his life. 
And fall into the indolence of age, 
As men about him, growing old .at ease, 



A SUSSEX IDYL. l6l 

Soon yielded up their acres to their sons, 
And basking by the chimney, or the door, 
Waited that longer silence and grave rest 
Hid in the hillocks by the church-yard door. 

But now the little mouths drove him afield, 
Rising at cock-crow, quitting with tlie dusk, 
Him, and his slave, old Isaac, silent both. 
Whom, once all sore and abject with his toil, 
The tender maid came to, holding the hand 
Of a wee sister following, and said, 
*^ Why, uncle, come with us into the shade ; 
You're very tired, the sun is like a fire. 
Here are blue flowers, and cooling grasses spread, 
And swinging boughs, and mocking birds in tune." 
The old man looked at her a troubled look. 
And eyed the waving wood, but shook his head. 
** Come, uncle, come ! '' persuadingly she cried. 
**Nay, nay," he said, '' the slave must do his toil," 
And to the dusty furrow turned his team. 
She, gazing, saw his brown back rise and fall. 
Guiding the harrow through green seas of corn, 
Like Nereius with his dolphins, but unlike. 
For these were joyous, joyless was the slave, 
With his great lolling oxen gored with flies, 
In this green sea and pitiless hot sun. 

Some poison of this universal toil. 
And slavery of man unto his fellow. 
Sickened the gentle soul with gloomy pain, 
So that she sighed and turned into the wood, 
Leaning her small cheek on a pine and wept. 



l62 AN AGE HENCE. 

So grew the child in tenderness of heart, 
In sweet forgetfulness of self, in grace, 
And grew in beauty as she grew in years. 
And yet she knew small pleasure out of home, 
And little was she known beyond her door. 

The longest journey of her life was taken 
When she was ten years old, to the great sea. 
Rising before the dawn, while yet the stars 
Flamed large in heaven, and in the darksome pines 
The owls and whippoorwills were calling lone, 
To sounds confused of winds and waters falling. 
The little maiden heard the morning sounds 
Almost with ecstasy, as voices strange 
Calling through airy chambers to the sea. 
The curious fowl perched in the orchard boughs, 
Were all astir as forth the wagon passed : 
All the village sleeping soundly and dreaming, 
And heeding not the laboring wain, from which 
Peered forth into the morning twilight dim. 
The white-haired children, from their nest of straw. 
Counting the houses, as they rolled along. 
With boastful knowledge of each drowsy hearth. 

From out his proud pavilion flashed the sun. 
Waving a bright '^Good morrow ! " to the world, 
And all the radiant romance of the morn. 
And now by glittering woods, and dewy fields. 
Where laughed the corn, a rustling whisper ran 
On into town, to herald who was near. 
The children heard it plainly, laughed, and cried, 



A SUSSEX IDYI,. 163 

**The oak tree tells it now, and now the elm, 

And that has told it to the water ! 

And now the crows have heard it, hear them call ! 

Why, sister Mary, all the folk will run 

To look at us, and make us quite ashamed ! '* 

But silent unto rapture, Mary sits. 

Breathing the morn like glory to the blest. 

Dully alert, the father notes each farm 
For signs of thrift, or indolence, or woe. 
And brief sententious speech makes now and then, 
Of censure or approval, while the wife 
Makes due inspection of each farm-house gray ; 
And Isaac sees the slaves have gone afield. 
And with half-hearted labor bend to toil. 
Thus each gleans from the journey, what he will, 
While the great day goes flaming up the sky, 
Unconscious of the cheek, alluring earth 
Turns passionate with longing, as he flies. 

They pass low sand hills, and by many a stream 
Thick thrust with alder and magnolia, come 
To the long street of Milton, with great ponds, 
lyike lakes around it, and the river flowing 
Midway the town, and in its narrow stream 
Vessels with corn and lumber laden deep, 
Waiting the flood-tide and fair winds for sea; 
While on the banks a dozen ships were building, 
To the sound of saw, and adze, and hammer, 
Hum of workmen, and the busy rhythm 
The many sounds of labor roll into. 



164 AN AGE HENCE. 

A quaint old house stood backward from the street, 
With lofty mulberries, and green shaven lawn, 
Where being asked to spend their hour of noon, 
The children tumbled on the grass, or slept, 
While William v/ith his wife, on the broad porch. 
Talked with the master of their toilsome way, 
The length of road before, and drifted soon 
To themes political and threats of war. 
The weather-beaten farmer, quite at ease. 
As who is not, thrown with a w^ell bred man ? 
Gave his opinion on affairs of state, 
Heard with respect by one, who, thought concealed. 
Not to appear more learned than his friend. 
And asked a question, where he might have given 
Council more perfect than in books appears. 
He loved to find the hoarded grain of wisdom 
Beneath the rude experiences of men. 

To whom stole Mary, as he talked of wars. 
The white rose scarcely paler than her cheeks. 
And stood dilating, red and wan, by turns. 
Whilst he played on this instrument, her soul, 
That like a reed in Pan's hour, wistful, rung 
With all the changes poured into her ear. 
At last, regarding her with earnest eyes, 
** You have an ardent spirit, such an one 
As comes but rarely to this troublous world. 
Too full of sympathy ; a mystic, too ; 
Were you my daughter, I should strangely fear ! " 
Then sent the child for flowers, and from her parents 
Learned of her gentleness, and kindly ways. 



A SUSSEX IDYL. 165 

Her thoughtfulness, and love of every creature ; 
And called her back, and kissing, gave her books, 
And blessed her as the wagon rolled away. 

The children much admired the ample gardens, 
Gorgeous with flowers, and bending with ripe fruit ; 
The sound of builders' axes, and the stream 
So sunny deep, and flowing thick with craft ; 
And now broad marshes stretching on each hand 
Further than eye could see, like green highways 
For summer crusades, spangled with strange flowers. 
On little mounds grew wild asparagus, 
And countless herds roamed grazing at their will. 
And every blasted tree, against the sky. 
Upbore the huge and cumbrous fish-hawk's nest ; 
And powerful on his rowing wings came one. 
Holding a blue-fish in his talons, shrill 
His screams, and piping from the nest upreared 
His hungry brood, while loud was children's laughter. 

Wild with excitement was each little heart. 
Nor Xenophon with his torn Grecian host 
Cried with more rapture to the sounding sea. 
Than did this marveling crew, when first the deep 
Like heaven inverted gleamed before their eyes. 
And thrilled with longing, like a worshipper, 
Sunk Mary on her knees, upon the shore. 
And wept among the children for great joy. 
And could not sleep at night, but heard the sea 
Rolling low thunder through the starry gloom, 
And in her fancy sailed far away 
To foreign lands, and came back rich and great, 
To be the saviour of her frugal home. 



l66 AN AGE HENCE. 

The sun came out the waters like a god ! 
How vast the morning seemed ! The little maid 
Had never dreamed the world was half so large, 
Or half so rich with flying argosies 
As now she saw upon the glittering sea. 

And long the child, to growing womanhood, 
Thought of those days as doors that shut and opened, 
Giving rich glimpse of glories unfulfilled. 
And shadows this side darkening ever on them. 
The books the kind old man had given her, 
Plutarch, and Burns, war's trumpet, and joy's song, 
Were sybiPs voices to her ; and unrest 
And yearning, took the old child peace away. 
But all the life she yearned for was foresworn — 
Travel in foreign lands, gold for the poor, 
I^arge converse with the great, the songs of bards 
Fresh flowing from the lips, as she had heard 
From tallest trees the mocking bird ring down 
Upon the silent choirs, in loveliest May. 
But not a murmur rose upon her lips, 
The meanest duties of her life she took 
With cheerful zest that made them honors seem. 
The humble cottage glowed when she came in 
As sudden sunlight through the panes had fallen, 
And every living creature out and in 
Drew to her, loving, and stood still with pain 
When she moved from them on her gentle way. 

Like perfume to the rose, the grape's aroma, 
The smell of peaches on an autumn morn, 



A SUSSEX IDYI.. 167 

About the antique neighborhood was blown, 

For beauty, and for loveliness, her fame. 

The rustic youth that fain would pluck the flower 

That made their hearts uneasy, might not dare, 

But on a morn beneath the swinging trees 

One mounted on a coal-black charger, saw 

The beauteous maid, like Dian, with a hound 

Crouched at her feet, and on her hands wild birds, 

And on her head, and on her shoulders, birds — 

And stopped for wonderment, and heard her sing 

Like any bird, a liquid song of joy. 

That all the birds piped to, and heard her say : 

**Aye, now ye sing with me for it is summer, 

And easy 'tis to love when all is fair. 

But ah, inconstant, ye will fly away 

To foreign fields when most I need you here." 

And he upon the coal-black charger swore 

Soft through his lips, " he would not fly, 

Were he the bird that nestled at her cheek, 

Though Paradise should open. Nay, not he !*' 

And felt a sudden and delicious warmth 

Swoon o'er his senses, mixed with pain and longing, 

And while he ached to hear her voice again, 

She turned and saw him. 

hike a young Apollo, 
Beaming his radiant eyes on hers, he spake, 
**I had not thought to meet a nymph of old. 
By these dim woods, hid in these sandy downs, 
And feel as I had left the world behind 
And stepped into a page of Fairey Queen. 



l68 AN AGE HENCE. 

Pardon intrusion : I was told this way 

Shortened by two miles, a long ride to Ivaurel.*' 

And heard her lips sweeten the air once more, 

And saw the tangled sunshine in her hair 

Make aureole, and felt his love, like wine. 

Mount in his cheeks, and quick to hide confusion, 

Began to tell, "I'm fresh from college halls, 

And for a vow I make a pilgrimage. 

As palmers old to shrines beyond the sea. 

To visit tombs of ancient folk of mine. 

And meet the sons of friends my father knew. 

Good social hearts that warm into one's own 

Like Christmas cheer, or sunshine in May weather. 

Belike your father knew my father, maid, 

His name was once a passport to all halls — 

Some echo, in his crowded memory. 

Of Richard Fleming, may survive till now.*' 

For pleasure of her beauty, unaware, 
Her voice chimed through him like a lute-string stirred. 
And how he slipped, a sunbeam, from his steed. 
To follow Mary down the long cool lane 
He never knew, but talking as in dream. 
Between the glowing peach trees, on they drew, 
To the low farm-house with its open door. 

The sound of bees about it in the flowers, 
The wind at murmur in the apple-boughs, 
The tall white lilies, like tall princesses, 
About the gate, the swallows at the eaves ; 
He thought he never knew so fair a scene. 
But thought in after years the place was dim 
But for the radiance of his hour of love. 



A SUSSEX IDYL. 169 

Out came the farmer, heard the stranger's name, 
And bade him welcome for the sake of him, 
Another Richard, known long since in youth. 
And told a hunting tale or two, of him. 
And laughed, and left them for the distant fields. 

An hour had dropped its yellow sands of gold, 
Ere Richard rode along the way to Laurel. 
A thousand thoughts were teeming in his brain 
Of jeweled ladies in their stately homes. 
Blue eyes, or brown, that lured a wandering fancy — 
And how he'd give them all, and all he had, 
And all his brave ambitions for the love 
Of that sweet girl, so simple and so pure. 

And Mary, through the insect-humming air 
Looked after him, and saw him fade away 
Through purple pines across the sandy downs. 
And felt some essence of her life was flown. 
Some vague unrest deep s^tolen in its place. 
Some nice adjustment gone that made her part 
Of old familiar things, and knew not why ! 
But the sparrows knew, and twittering flew away, 
The wild bee knew and sought the distant flower. 
The hound slunk sideways with an abject air. 
The burnished pigeon told it to his mate, 
The gorgeous butterfly swooned far and farther off", 
No longer lingered Phoebus in the blue. 

The mother from the open window leaned 
To call the willing maid to some slight toil, 
But looked, and knew, and thought of olden time, 
And left the fond soul to its revery. 



170 AN AGE HENCE. 

And all the evening, with a tearful eye 
Followed her Mary, felt a kinder glow, 
Than e'en was wont to move her loving heart. 

It was an hour before the dawn of day, 
While yet the barn-yard fowl were sleeping last, 
The maid awoke from dreams of plunging seas, 
And winds that buffeted the drowsy sails 
That bore her down the highway of the world. 
Awoke, and from the window, into night, 
I^eaned o'er the woodbine and her sparrow's nests, 
lyike any woodland goddess half aroused 
To light rain-patter of some fawn's white feet, 
And thought ' ' How sea-dreams haunt me all the while. 
And th' air with forms invisible is thronged 
I faintly guess at, or my spirit knows. 
And each calls softly, ' Come into the world ! ' 
But I am like my youngling sparrows here. 
That faint upon the nest's rim, and shrink back 
From the wide ether and the glowing fields. 
And where is any pilot through dim voids 
And rolling waves, shall bear me to vast shores. 
Or teach me somewhat of this human heart 
That beats in solemn rhythm round the world ! " 

Thus murmured she, the wood-bine stirred below, 
And little sleepy sparrows like moths came, 
To flutter round her beauty, and grew still, 
One in her brown curls, on her white arms some ; 
One fluttered out upon a level wind, 
The maid's eyes following, as for a sign. 



A SUSSEX IDYI.. 171 

Now, have you ever seen the moonlit morn 
Before the Bast grows rosy, felt the spell 
Of glamorous witchery shed upon the night? 
All things are seen in large, as Titans see. 
And not with human microscopic eyes. 
A bank of shadows lies the garden trim. 
The flowers are fairy argosies unseen. 
That waste themselves in sweetness as they go. 
The orchard is a forest, and green woods 
Grow to the shaggy vastness of old hills. 
And cottages are Eastern palaces : 
While floods the yellow moonlight over all 
Like a deep sea that reaches to the stars. 
And earth lies at the bottom of that sea. 
None ever dreamed a romance but hath been 
Made somewhere real. Under this moon-deep, 
The maid's eyes, following as for a sign. 
Saw on his finny wings the sparrow go 
Straight as a love-dart, to a giant steed. 
That stood like silent thunder, and upbore 
A youth titanic, who, as for a sign 
Had waited, and now vanished into dawn. 

She heard no sound of hoof-beats on the turf, 
Yet felt a stir of presence in the air, 
Drew satiny palm across her eyes, and looked. 
Only to see the first rose-flush of morn. 
The first stir of the world, the dewy boughs 
Atremble in the breeze and dropping pearls. 
But ne'er the less, amid cock-crowing and the cry 



172 AN AGE HENCE. 

Of quails among the corn, she felt she knew 
Her sign, and knew the pilot who should be. 

And Richard, riding on the marge of day. 
Went softly with the sparrow, in a dream. 
He had not thought the road from Laurel long. 
Though winding after midnight through great pines. 
And over solitary streams, that sang 
Through reed and fern, about his horse's feet, 
For the great bowed moon, all yellow like live gold, 
Shone soft enchantments, and his eyes were turned 
Like the blind Cupid's in upon his heart, 
And that was rapt in soft, delicious fancies. 

Lone at her gate he stood, in the moon's last glow, 
His eyes like summer swallows, in and out 
The windows flying, searching for his love. 
And she had risen from her downy nest 
To flush the morn with beauty, half surmised 
And half surmising, as he rode away. 



A FANTASY OF THE GREEN MOUNTAINS. 1 73 



A FANTASY OF THE GREEN MOUNTAINS. 

I LOOKED down on the forest 
As out on the emerald sea, 
Where the wind with a roll like thunder 

Beat the surges violently. 
And far up the lonely gorges, 

The stress of the tide swept high, 
And up the crest of the mountains 
Until it tossed in the sky. 

And the throe of a fancy seized me : 

Those dots of distant men 
Were fish that, swam and plotted, 

In the sea-ooze and the fen. 
And the wreck of a world's endeavor, 

Was grateful to their sense — 
They fought for their share of treasure 

Till the shark had driven them thence. 



174 AN AGK HENCE. 

They fought in shoals and contended, 

While the imps of evil, drew, 
Them up on their hooks, where folly 

Was the bait, with spangles blue. 
And ever, Plutus, poised on 

His wings, dropped down in the stream, 
And bore away the fairest 

Sea-maiden in a dream. 

*' Oh, where in the hollow lustre 
Takest thou me, oh, God?'' 
** To make thee empress in heaven 
In amaranth vales untrod !'' 
Through the distance vast, in splendor. 
He flits, self-poised, and her charms 
Warm through him like the summer ; 
And she trembles with vague alarms. 

Thou, too, on thy rock, mermaiden. 

Slip shining, and fair, as of old. 
And sing me some wondrous lyric. 

As thou combest thy hair of gold. 
The sea-mew, and the serpent. 

And the mariner, draw near. 
As thou sing'st of love undying. 

In thy cavern in the mere. 



A FANTASY OF THE GREEN MOUNTAINS. 175 

But thy Spell enthralls no longer 

My soul, and I crave that thou sing 
Of the deep eternal mysteries, 

And give me a draught from their spring. 
For thy face has been loved too often, 

Embraced hadst thou been of men 
Ere I knew thee, Treacherous Beauty — 

I can not love thee again. 

She sank with a moan through the surges 

The mariner sailed away, 
A cloud hid the sun in his zenith, 

And desolate grew the day. 
And far down the lonely gorges. 

The tide shrunk into the sea. 
And the moan of the mermaid a voice was 

That pained and haunted me. 



176 AN AGE HENCE. 



PLEASURE. 

PLEASURE, for all her deep enchanting ways, 
Is but a haughty mistress. She detests 
Persistent votaries, but joys to find 
Young ardent spirits freshly at her shrine. 
These, at the first, she thrills with raptures keen, 
Next with a quiet joy, contentment after. 
But if they come again she veils her charms. 
Gives her embraces loosely, and the fire 
That warmed and sparkled through her courtesy, 
Dies out, and leaves an autumn in its room. 
Who then withdraws, does wisely, but who stays 
She smites with ennui, and distaining, hies 
With all the brilliance of her maiden hour, 
To atmospheres of music, and forgets. 



FATE. '^n 



FATE. 

RAREIyY develops any mortal 
Into the strong perfection of the soul, 
Meant by the genius who dispenses life ! 
Some coldness of the gods — I know not what, 
Withers the germ or blasts the flower untimely. 

Else earth were cramped and little for our race — 
But nature at her wits* end, solemn fool ! 
Crowds men in cities, and in huge despair 
Blasts them with famine, or in feverish quarrels 
Whets one against the other like edged steel, 
Where war with murder, makes a holiday. 

She lifts a peasant to an ancient throne ; 
Drags down the king to dig his food with swine. 
And to no purpose, bids all purpose come. 
The gods that gave her power, gave not wit 
To shape her ends, so, what she builds to-day 
She ruins to-morrow, and begins again, 
But never in a lofty glory ends. 



178 AN AGE HENCE. 

From savage unto splendor mounts she now, 
From splendor unto savage sinks again — 
Fate bids her tread the old eternal round. 
With tombs has time grown weary, whilst fond life 
Lost in amazement, pours his ample flood. 
Spendthrift of love and great emprise. 
Tricked with false promises, and prey to fiends. 



AN OI*D AGK FUI^I. OF HONOR. 1 79 



AN OLD AGE FULL OF HONOR. 

WHETHER I like your lady, most depends 
Upon the face and address of her mother, 
For youth becomes all creatures, while old age 
Is rarely crown and glory to a man. 
On most it sits like burden on a slave, 
Or th' Old Man of the Sea on Sindbad^s shoulders. 
And nature for these last ten thousand years 
Failing somewhat, but crafty to the core. 
Has made her women with some vice of form, 
That like a flaw in fruit, brings on decay 
Before the summer of her charms is sped. 
To hide the flaw, to blind the eyes of men, 
A spell of beauty o'er the mould she flings 
Might stay the wandering fancy of a god. 
But soon the hour draws on, a haggard wreck 
Becomes the glowing creature that had pained 
A hundred hearts, and made a fool of one. 
I know the trick, I can not be deceived. 
I meet the famous beauty, make my bow, 
Ask for her mother — thousand times to one 
I meet an old age painful to my eye. 
Sans grace, sans dignity, and void of wit 
Except its bitter flavor, like the dregs 
Found in the wine cup when the feast is over. 



l8o AN AGE HENCE. 

Though, I have seen, an old age full of honor 
A majesty that, like an autumn sun 
Descending in a still and golden air, 
Rays out a glory whose enchanting beams 
Kindle the furthest faces. But not oft. 
Daughter of such an one more precious is 
Than all that earth moulds elsewhere into being. 
Albeit her mother's spirit, scorning pride, 
Had housed her in a peasant's honest flesh. 
Or, if the gods consenting, so much worth 
Should link itself like melting drops of gold. 
Backward through many a royal heart, at last 
To Mary on the Mount of Olives, thou, 
Who'er thou art, oh, win her, if thou canst ! 



ALFRED ANTOINE FURMAN. l8l 



ALFRED ANTOINE FURMAN. 

I WONDER where you wander with the muse, 
These golden days of reverie and rhyme, 
In what deep aisles you hide yourselves and lose 
The importunate world, and head-long hurrying time. 
I know which way you went, the very trees 
Lean toward you, dryads hasten, and the swan 
Swoons thither down the heavens, and the breeze 
Gives many a lyric back — oh, there withdrawn, 
Forget the cares that haunt us, poet mine, 
Dream in her eyes, weave fantasies, and be 
Approved by all that goodly company 
Who wait upon her fortunes : but, if wine 
Of immortality she offer you. 
The flagon drain, ere she can bid, Adieu ! 



1 82 AN AGE HENCE. 



FAREWELL. 

AND now farewell, for you and I must part ; 
The ways divide, the night draws on apace, 
The wind grows chill, I thank you from my heart 
For all your warmth of courtesy and grace. 

If in the night you hear an elfin strain 

Blown toward you in the solitudes of sleep. 

Know in your dreams, I turned and looked with pain. 
And struck the lyre with many a longing deep. 

We shall all meet again, time rolls around. 
The Spring immortal rises from the bier. 

The friend I have shall somewhere else be found, 
The rose I lost shall bloom another year. 



NOV 27 1901 

1 COPY DEI. TO CAT. OIV. 
NOV. 29 1901 



DEC. 4 1901 



J 



